Rattle my cage
by Flowing lantern
Summary: Stelena story/ Elena is just a regular student at Whitmore college, trying to make her way through medschool. Or so it seems. As a member of the Augustine society, her father urges his daughter to join him in his experiments on vampires and soon for Elena torturing them becomes an everyday routine, which she enjoys. Until Stefan Salvatore gets captured.
1. Chapter 1

_**A/N: Hey, guys, this is a new story that I recently started and I hope you'll like. Basically, Elena is a student at Whitmore, just a regular girl by day and a vampire torturer by night. She helps her father, who is a part of the Augustine society and her hatred for all vampires is what fuels her desire to torture them. That is until Stefan gets captured and changes things. I would very much appreciate your reviews since I don't know if I should continue.**_

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 **Elena's POV**

I feel someone shaking my shoulder in not-so-gentle manner and I tuck my blanket even closer to my chin. I don't even know what time it is, but I'm sure it's way past midnight and the only reason someone was trying to wake me right now, was probably because my father needed my help.

I refused to get up and deal with another one of his vampires, that he has probably just captured and is most definitely fascinated by them, just because I wanted to sleep. Medical school was not an easy thing to go through and with all the extra work at the secret Augustine society where we experimented on vampires and practically tortured them, I was lacking sleep and energy. I needed a weekend to myself, in order not to party, but to study for the upcoming exams, and yet my father with his sweet stubbornness and passion to explore refused to give it to me.

"Elena, come on, please!" I hear Matt's gentle voice from behind me and I'm pretty sure that if he's here, then Caroline my roommate is already up and taking a shower in the bathroom, ready to join me downstairs where the cells were.

"No….way" I just mumbled and covered my head with the pillow, though even that didn't prevent me from hearing Matt sigh annoyed with my behavior "I'm not getting up."

"You have to" he said seriously.

Matt was always so uptight, that guy was born to be a cop or a soldier or something of the sort. He's the most disciplined person I've ever met and he quite frankly annoys me in times like this, even though he is one of my oldest childhood friends

"Your father had an urgent business back in Mystic Falls and the guys brought a new vampire, we have to take care of him." he explains and I roll my eyes, though still refusing to open them.

By "the guys" Matt means the hunters. The Augustine society had their own little hunter's army, who traveled in the area and the nearest states and hunt vampires, who they later brought here unless something went wrong on their way back and they had to kill them.

My father liked to examine vampires who are not just simple creatures of the night-he liked the strange cases of those who kill mercilessly or are different in another way and his colleague , doctor Whitmore often praised him for his work.

I liked helping my father with that. It was interesting to examine the vampires, to observe them, but he would rarely let me torture them myself-he said it's too early for that, even though I was a second year in Medschool and have participated in different kinds of surgeries already.

What was so different about a vampire? Their heart isn't even beating, they are animals, monsters, they have lost their souls the moment they turned, so I couldn't get why my father wouldn't let me at least try. He allowed me to watch sometimes and I admit, after that, I couldn't get rid of the sound of their screams for days, but I tried hard to ignore it-vampires were a threat to our world, yet they could also help us develop a cure for deathly diseases and that is what I wanted to succeed in one day.

For it to happen, however, I need to lift my ass up.

I hear someone open the bathroom door and Caroline's cheerful voice fills the room.

"I can't get her up" Matt protests and Caroline sighs annoyed

"Clear the way, I'll deal with her" she announces and I squeeze my eyes shut, knowing well enough that she's the only one who can get me up and succeed in waking me "Elena, get your ass up before your dad has come back and figured we haven't managed to deal with one single vampire and make sure he doesn't cause any problems during his first night!" she scolds as she puts the blanket off of me and I finally turn around with a very sad expression on "Oh, no, don't give me that shit! Get up!"

"Coffee?" I mumble with a hoarse voice and she smiles at me

"I already made some, so move your skinny butt and let's get down to the cells. Matt, I'm sure you wouldn't mind giving her some space in order to change?" she turns to our best friend who blushes and I notice it even in the cold dark room. He makes his way out and promises that he'll wait outside while Care helps me get up and tosses clothes in my direction. "You seriously need to get your shit together, Elena."

"Me? Why are those stupid hunters bringing a vampire back in the middle of the night? Can't they keep him in the van till morning?"

"You know that's dangerous. They can escape and kill half the people who are peacefully sleeping in the dorms and I'm sure you don't want that" she points out and I sigh annoyed as I put on my jeans and the shirt she gave me, which I wasn't even sure is mine, but I trusted Care. I haven't exactly been myself lately. I actually haven't been myself since my mother passed away a year ago, but I was strongly trying to neglect the fact that this was the reason why I had no motivation to do anything anymore.

When I'm finally ready, I glance at the clock-it's half past three and they must've woken me ten minutes earlier, for which I hate them, but I don't even have time to think about any of it as Caroline drags me down the stairs while Matt walks long before us in order to open the locked doors.

My father trusted him with those things, he was something like a guard and he helped a lot when the vampires had to be taken out of their cells. He wasn't of any particularly famous or rich family-on the contrary, his mother has abandoned him and his sister years ago and he never knew his father. My dad has taken pity on him and since he's such a good boy, who is a great student and perfects in every field, he thought we could use him here.

"Hey, you guys!" I hear my brother's cheerful voice as we finally get down where most of the hallways leading to different type of cells were. He comes out of the back entrance, some blood on his shoulder, staining his plaid shirt.

"Jeremy, what the hell?" I raise my voice right away "Did you go out hunting again?" he gives me a childish smile, but I shake my head and furrow my eyebrows "You know, that dad is going to kill you for it!" my father is the one who made the hunters start my little brother's preparation to join the league of vampire killers, but he refused to let him on the field yet after a few weeks back he came from a hunting trip with his neck bleeding and a few ribs crushed-it scared me out of my mind.

"Relax, sis, it's alright!" he tries to calm me down while taking a bloody stake from his back pocket and tosses it in the nearest bucket where they kept all sorts of weapons in case some of the vampires tried to play hero and escaped from the cells. Which only happened once and then they killed the said vampire. "This one is not that troublesome and he's kind of weak if you ask me." he states and in the same moment the door behind my brother opens and the hunters Jake and Tom bring in the vampire.

I can't see him good since the light here isn't exactly great, so I turn around and order them to bring him to the examination room so I can take his measures and sign him in, give him a number and all that before taking him to his cell.

I can hear him struggling behind us, but I refuse to turn around quite frankly because I'm annoyed by it-I've seen this happen so many times. My brother yells at them to stop for a short moment when he gets uncontrollable and I hear him break one of his bones, most probably a leg so that he can't give so much trouble.

"I need him whole, Jeremy!" I yell from upfront as I start unlocking one of the doors after Matt hands me the keys. " Did you give him vervain?" I ask confused as I push the door open and turn the lights on, waiting for them to get in.

I don't turn around right away, I see what a mess it is on dad's desk and stretch out to find a new file, which would be the vampire's. There is a metal medical table in the middle of the room with straps which we tight around their hands and ankles, as well as many drawers full of scalpels, syringes and stakes-different types of torture or experimental devices that my father and doctor Whitmore either invented or bought.

I hear them grunting behind me and when I finally turn around I see them dragging the vampire. He's dressed in a nice blue shirt and dark jeans, the mask they've put on his face, so he wouldn't bite them was hiding half of it, but still as I saw him…I gasped-he was exceptionally beautiful and his green groggy eyes scanned the room in confusion.

"We gave him two shots and he's still pulling up a fight the bastard" Jake huffs out annoyed and tries to bring the vampire back to his feet, but his leg, the one that my brother broke, still surprisingly hasn't healed and he's a pain in their asses.

Something in me breaks when I look at the vampire-he's struggling, trying hard to free himself, but the vervain ropes and the hunter's strong grip limit his movement. He is no older than seventeen or so he looks like. I wonder when he turned and what happened to him. There's something so tortured in his look-I've never seen it with the other vampires-he's mad, but the sadness inside him seems so deep, it's like is rooting him to the ground.

"Elena?" my brother brings me back to earth. The moment the vampire stills and looks at me his eyes widen in shock and when I approach him, he tries to pull away from me.

"Take his mask off!" I nod at my brother and he obliges. The vampire has stopped trying to get away. His blond messy hair is bloody-I assume they've hit the back of his head in order to shake him off a bit and then staked him. I can see the holes in his chest, which are starting to heal, though the vervain in his system is probably slowing down the process. He doesn't seem that strong to me, yet he has pulled up some fight since Jake's eye is blue and kind of swollen. I'm glad he hasn't hurt my brother but even the thought of it makes my inside burn with hatred. When his jaw is free, his vampire teeth immediately stuck out and he speaks up

"Katherine!" he gasps in my direction with his eyes still widen. He looks like a mad man-there's swear on his forehead and he's very pale-paler than any of the killers they've brought before.

"Great, we've got a crazy one!" Jeremy exhales, but the vampire's eyes are still on me "Hey, stop looking at her like that!" my brother gets angrier and Matt approaches him, in case he needs to intervene

"Katherine?" he whispers again and his green eyes glimmer with confusion. He is obviously mistaking me for someone else, but the way he looks at me, makes my heart clench. Whatever this girl Katherine did to him-it obviously broke his heart. He looks like he's going to collapse any minute now, so I hurry to get back to work-I can't deal with his craziness right now. My father would most probably want to start experimenting on him in a few days when he calms down and stops trying to get away

"Bring him up to his feet" I order and the hunters raise him up. He yelps in pain and shakes his head, but he manages to stand still even with his leg still not completely healed. I take his height and his weight with enormous difficulties-he shivers every time I get close to him and the boys make fun of me. There's something so strange about him.

"What is this place? Who are you? Let me go!" the usual questions follow and my brother and Matt have to keep him down. They entertain themselves while I file the report and take turns to kick him in the stomach. A couple of times when they approach him, his vampire teeth come out, but he hides his face himself and goes back to normal-I've never seen a vampire do that.

"What's your name?" I ask him, but he refuses to respond

"She asked you a question!" Matt grunts in his face, grabs his hair and pulls him back

"Fuck you!" he yells out instead and I shake my head as I pass Care the file and let her finish writing while I check his pupils and tease him until his vampire teeth prop back out-he seems to be in a good condition and it really surprises me that he hasn't collapsed after the second vervain shot.

"It doesn't matter if you don't tell me your name." I say while I check out how the wounds are healing and tortured him by sticking my finger in one of them, just to get a reaction out of him, he has suddenly grown so calm, it was very unusual l "From now on you're just a number" I grant him a devilish smirk and he clenches his jaw. "I would however love to tell me when you turned into this monster."

He laughs out

"You know when I turned, Katherine" he still considers me to be someone else "You were there."

"That's strange" I say to myself as I scratch the back of my neck "The vervain is making him delusional, but he's still conscious" Care shrugs, we haven't seen that before, but it's quite interesting

"I'm sure your father will love this one" my best friend points out and I agree, but there's something so confusing about this vampire's green eyes.

They look at me with so much pain and sorrow.

 _It's like he's human._

 **Stefan's POV**

I never thought, that this hunting trip in the forest will turn out the way it did. Or maybe, I knew it deep down, but I didn't really bother to be careful. I haven't felt fear for years-I was after all the Ripper of Monterey and even though I didn't lead this lifestyle anymore, it didn't mean that I couldn't take care of someone who's after me.

Those people, however, they came out of nowhere. I didn't hear them at all, I didn't recognize the sound of their beating hearts. It might've also been because I haven't fed that good lately, but still…something didn't seem right about them. Maybe they had their methods of sneaking around vampires, leading them into traps, because that's what happened.

I was hunting deer in the forest, but after I lost track of them, I noticed a dead rabbit lying near a tree. I stopped confused-it didn't seem logical for the animal to be here and it looked as if has been just killed. Maybe there were other hunters in the forest-I decided. Maybe they've killed it soon, but then forgot it here, or didn't even know where to find it. I was stupid, I wasn't thinking-I was just lead by my hunger, I haven't eaten in more than a day, so I grabbed the rabbit and started drinking its blood.

And then I felt someone hitting my head so hard, I lost balance right away. I tried to turn around and I saw the first guy-he had a rifle in one hand and a steak in the other-that's how I knew they weren't just regular hunters and I immediately regretted my decision to eat the abandoned animal. I tried to flee, but before I knew what was happening, another one was staking my back. I fell to my knees and saw a third approaching me with a shot of what must've been vervain-he looked young, no more than a sixteen year old kid-I used to kill people like him.

I still don't give up, I get back on my feet and try to run, but the first one uses his rifle and shoots me five times in the back-I am weak, I've been on animal blood for years now, hiding in the shadows, hunting as peacefully as I could-I even slit the animal's throats with a knife, refusing to use my teeth to rip them out.

I've given up the life of the ripper after Lexi helped me get myself back together all those years ago. The memory of my best friend flashes through and I smile sadly as I hit the ground-I wish she was here, she could've helped me escape. I feel them injecting me with two vervain shots, but I've been trained to resist it. Ten years after I've turned, Lexi has helped me build that resistance, she would give me a few drops a day at first, then I would drink half a glass and stay on my feet without flinching. It was a hard process, but it was important to have the ability to stay in your right mind when hunters decide to catch you. I feel them raising me up and putting a mask to prevent me from using my teeth and that's when I realize that those are the hunters they've warned me about-some kind of society or whatever that captured vampires for some crazy reason. Lexi has been warning me about them in the past year, but I've shrugged it off. I've stopped caring about certain things a very long time ago.

Which is why I feel so numb as they get me in their van and drive me to some forgotten place. I don't lose consciousness and I hear them talk about something, but I refuse to let the words sink in.

I refuse to acknowledge what's happening to me until they take me to some hallway, break my leg when I struggle to get away from them and shove me to some basement room which is cold and honestly quite scary-I can see all the scalpels and other torture devices on the metal counters glued to the stone walls-this place is hell.

But when I see her, I lose my mind.

I'm high on vervain and I'm trying to resist it with all the strength I'm left with-the bullets are still in my back and they are killing me, but I am sure that this girl before me is Katherine.

They laugh at me, the boys even torture me and kick me-they love to play with the monster or so it seems, but I can't take my eyes off her.

When she asks me when I turned, I feel my anger built up in me and I want to free myself from the hunter's tight grips and pin her to the wall.

Until I realize she has a heartbeat.

Which means she can't be Katherine. There's no way for a vampire to turn into a human. Least of all a dead vampire-the first love of my life hasn't been around for more than a 160 years. It's impossible that this is her.

When I look closer, I realize that I was wrong-even though the similarity is stunning, there are differences. This girl's brown eyes are somehow softer, kinder and even though I can see how much she hates me, I can say that under this hardcore composure, there's just a girl, no more than 20 years old. She's in her best years, the peak of her young vulnerable human life-maybe she's compassionate, maybe she is good, but she choses to show me her dark side.

I'm stunned by her beauty, but I forbid my heart to feel-I'm trapped, they are going to shove me in some cell any minute now, God knows when I'll get the chance to run or what will happen to me-this girl is probably going to be the reason for all my problems from now on.

She can't be beautiful.

And she can't see.

She's a monster in disguise. All of them are-the boys, the hunters, the blond female who must be the girl's age-they are those who torture and attack, not me. I haven't drunk people's blood in ages. I haven't captured or tortured one. I might've been a ripper before, but I've chosen a different life for myself now, I have lost and found myself more times than I can count, but those people before me-they are someone's kids and their parents had made them hate my species and for a good reason, we were monsters.

But some of us also carried a soul. And that made us human.

The girl they call Elena, orders them to drag me to the cells and soon I'm being pushed to a dark hallway and lead to the end of it. She joins the hunters while the youngest boy and the blond girl remain in that examination room. She opens the door for the hunters and they take me in another hallway, this time, however, there are cells on both sides and I can hear noises of cages being rattled and curious heads trying to catch a glimpse of me. I soon realize those must be other vampires imprisoned here, but my vision is starting to blur after the third shot of vervain and no matter how hard I try, I know that I'll soon lose consciousness.

They shove me in the first cell on the right and Elena gets in too.

"No, not to the wall" she interrupts them when they hurry to pin me to the cold wall against the door "Tie him up, I want him hanging from the ceiling!" her voice is cold and ruthless and even though the hunters don't really want to oblige since they seem tired to me, they follow her orders and drag me to the middle of the cell.

I keep staring at her and for a moment I feel like she won't look away, but then I finally make her uncomfortable and she looks down until she remembers that it's her job to torture me, not the other way around.

"Why are you still awake, huh?" she asks, but she doesn't really expect an answer for me and I watch her cross her hands on her chest and watch them tie my hands and tighten the rope. They start pulling back and soon they raise me up-I hang from the ceiling, my feet are a few inches above the ground and the soles of my shoes are almost touching it, but the pain is excruciating and she sees it.

Moreover, she seems to be enjoying it.

"Should we take the bullets off his back or no?" one of the hunters asks and she gives him a confused look

"He has some in him?" she asks and I feel the surprise cradle in her voice. The hunter obviously nods and then she looks back up at me "You're hurt and after three vervain shots, you're still awake? Who are you exactly?" she keeps wondering and seems quite satisfied with my threshold for pain.

I've been tortured before, alright, and what they are doing now is not something I haven't been through, but I have the feeling that it's going to only get worse.

"Keep them there. I want to see how long he can stay awake with this kind of pain" she is clearly confused by my ability to remain conscious even now and honestly, so am I.

I have been off human blood in a long time and that was making me weaker, yet somehow-maybe it was the pain or just my own stubbornness-I was fighting back. I silently thanked Lexi for helping me all those years ago. She has taught me so many things, yet somehow I was careless enough to let them capture me tonight. That didn't mean, I won't find a chance to get away. I only needed them to move me. Once I was untied and they tried to do whatever it is they wanted from me, I could figure out a way to escape. There had to be one, or so I hoped. It's not like I didn't deserve this-I've taken many lives and no matter how much good I've tried to do, I couldn't get them back-I might not have been a monster but I was a killer.

The girl remains in the cell for a while, waiting for me to lose consciousness and I feel my eyelids getting heavier with every passing minute, but she obviously isn't done. She asks one of the hunters for a knife and rips my shirt off with her small, but strong hands. My chest is exposed to her and for a moment I feel like she's actually admiring my strong body until she lifts the knife and drags it across my chest. She draws a big line and the blood starts dripping down-it colors the floor.

Yet I bite my tongue and swallow my yells.

I won't let her see me weak.

And that pisses her off.


	2. Chapter 2

**Elena's POV**

I was heading downstairs to the lower floors to meet up with my dad after a long day at college. I was going to brag and tell him how I might've actually passed the Chemistry exam that was bugging me so much and I wanted to make him feel proud. I was also excited to join him this evening, for we were to start experimenting on the new vampire or at least see how strong he really was.

Dad usually liked to check their ability to resist and handle pain in their weakest state after we've just captured them, so he can decide what to use them for. Most of them were completely lifeless by this point of their incarceration, but Matt told me he's been on guard last night and he heard the new one moving inside and even trying to free himself from his chains, which was completely unbelievable considering how weak he was the last time I saw him.

There was surely something different about him, not only because he seemed to be unwilling to give up fighting all of us that night, but also, because there was something strange in his eyes-something that actually made me feel bad for doing all of this to him until I was reminded of my father's words which have become my mantra

" _Vampires are monsters, they do not have souls, feelings, nothing, they just feed to keep themselves alive and they kill for the thrill and the enjoyment of it all."_

After repeating it a few times, I would go back to my usual self. Or so I liked to think. That night after my brother and the other hunters brought him, I went back to bed with Caroline mumbling something in the background and couldn't help but remember the way he looked at me-so much pain and confusion. He didn't know what was happening to him and for a moment there I saw him as a child, not a vampire, but just a very screwed up teenager, which were chaining to the ceiling, just to see how his body would react on all the pain.

"Daaaad!" I yelled as I tossed my backpack in the locker room, put on my scrubs and ran to his lab.

The torture room, like Matt called it, was empty, which meant dad must've just gotten here. When I open the door to his cabinet, I find him reading files on his old desk and the minute he saw me, a wide smile stretched on his face and he got up to give me a hug. I loved my father, I really did-we had a great understanding, he and I, unlike his relationship with my brother, who was rebelling ever since my mother died and taking unnecessary risks like hunting vampires miles away from home.

I was trying to be supportive of dad, I took care of stuff at home and helped him with it all-I realized how hard it is for him to raise a teenage boy and support his daughter through college. Part of the reason he was so fond of the Augustine society and the idea behind it, was not only because it was interesting, but also because it provided us with enough money, apart from his day job as a doctor in the local hospital. He was tearing himself between two towns and working on two places.

My mother's death last year crushed him and instead of taking the time to grief properly, he ended up burying himself in work and refusing to talk-I was worried about him, but I enjoyed spending as much time as I could with him, which is also one of the reasons I started helping him out with the vampires.

"Hey, kiddo!" he welcomed me warmly and gently stroked my head. Sometimes I wondered how such a good person could inflict so much pain on the vampires.

It was really brutal sometimes, it got too much even for me, but I had to overcome my weakness and deal with it, if I wanted to show him that I'm capable of doing this as well

"How was your day?" he asks genuinely curious and I tell him about my exam, which only makes his smile grow wider.

"What about you? Did you get a chance to see the new vampire?" I ask curiously and he chuckles

"No, I was waiting for you. Matt said he was awake this morning, but then the exhaustion took over." he gets back to his more serious self and fixes his glasses as he looks back at his desk and tries to find the files-I almost can't believe it. He is supposed to be unconscious after all that vervain and not feeding for a while. I'm curious to see him.

"So am I. There is something different about this one" I say, but I'm not sure my dad believes me yet, he wants to see it with his own eyes, which is why he nods with a polite smile as if I don't know anything since I am just a child

"You ready?" he asks and I nod. I really wanted to see the vampire. It's been about a day and a half since they brought him and I knew my dad was interested in him since he's had such extraordinary behavior from the beginning. Most of all, my dad loved the different cases, because he could develop his experimenting on them.

"Let's see that monster now, shall we?" we exited his office and headed downstairs to another floor where the cells were. Matt noticed us from the other end of the hallway and got excited-I bet he must've been here for a while and he was getting tired of it.

"Hey, Elena!" he smiled at me "Mr. Gilbert" my father greeted him back, no matter how hard he tried to make Matt call him Grayson it was just helpless.

He would always be polite and very loyal to my father for giving him this job and this opportunity to help people battle vampires. He was a avid vampire hater since when they were younger one of them bit his sister and then made a lousy compelling which has really confused her and made people think she's crazy.

"How is it going, Matt?" I ask and he shrugs. He looked very tired and I bet he hasn't slept in a long time, but he still found it in him to be polite to us and indulge in a casual conversation while he dug out the keys and opened the main gate leading us inside another long hallway full of cells with starving vampires. "Jake and Tom are in the locker room, would you like me to get them?" he asks and my father nods

"Yeah, we would need them" he nods, obviously very lost in his mind.

I follow him inside and we find the new vampire's cell easily-it's the second on the left just next to the door. When I see him, I almost gasp-he looked quite awful. The boys have taken him from the ceiling and chained him to the wall, his hands were pinned with heavy metal cuffs and vervain ropes on both sides just like his feet, which were brought together and tightly bounded at his ankles, again with soaked vervain ropes.

There was nothing left of his shirt, I assume that Jake and Tom have been here last night and gave him a lesson if he has showed his attitude, which is why he looked so awful now. He seemed to be unconscious and I could barely notice his chest rising up and down-it looked like he was in deep, but torturous sleep.

My father, however, seemed very fascinated. He wasn't seeing things like I was and he approached the cell inspecting the vampire curiously. Soon Matt and the hunters followed and greeted us, opening the cell for my father and me. He didn't argue when I joined him inside and we kneeled besides the sleeping vampire.

"Interesting" he was murmuring to himself "Very interesting" he looked up at Jake and asked him for a knife.

I found myself wishing I didn't know what he would do to the vampire, but I hurried to push the thoughts at the back of my mind. I was relieved, however, when he started poking him in the ribs with the knife's handle and the vampire stirred confused. He lifted his head up, but even that seemed to cost him much effort

"Well, hello there" my father greeted him with an evil smile as he dropped the knife and courageously approached him even closer. He lift up his chin and turn his head left and right, checked his eyes with the light and carefully opened his mouth, hoping that the vampire wouldn't try to bite. "Have you given him blood?" my father asked the hunters and they shook their heads

"Nothing yet, we were waiting for you to see him first." my father was even more pleased with these news. He was like a child playing with his new toy-he was amused and somehow it made me wonder if that was the same person, who hugged me just ten minutes ago. Then again I looked at the vampire and even in his weak state, I tried to imagine him as a monster.

I couldn't.

My father asked them for some blood, just a small amount in a plastic cup-the usual dosage that we gave all vampires and raised it to the vampire's mouth.

"No…" he spoke up for the first time since we came inside and shook his head "No, I don't want" my father looked at him with confusion while Jake huffed behind us

"Are you sure we got a vampire and not some werewolf or something? I've never heard a vampire refuse blood before" the vampire looked at him with glossy disorientated eyes and twisted his head away from my father

"It's…human" he only let out tiredly and I raised my eyebrows as I got closer to him and my father. I wasn't afraid-he was chained after all, he couldn't do us no harm, not in this state for sure "I don't…drink…human" he explained and my father almost gasped from excitement as he placed the glass down and fixed his glasses.

He then looked at me and we both thought the same thing-a vampire who doesn't drink human blood has managed not to lose complete consciousness after he's been drugged with vervain.

That was extraordinary.

He should've been half death by now if he was feeding off animals and had that much of the poisonous herb in his system. Or at least, he would surely won't have the ability to form sentences.

My father and I exchanged surprised glances, but I knew he was already thinking of something else and I wasn't wrong when I saw him standing up and nodding to the hunters.

"Give him the special treatment" he ordered and I knew perfectly would this means.

They were going to cuff his hands and then start beating him. It was my father's way of figuring out exactly how strong a certain vampire is and how they would heal after all the wounds they would get

"I want to see how much he'll take. Then you'll feed him" he nodded at me "We'll inject him with the blood if he doesn't want to drink it." he orders and I nod.

We leave the cell and patiently stand right outside as we watch the hunters unchain him and bring him up to his feet. Matt stands somewhere far behind us, giving my father his space, and soon after, leaves outside after being called by one of the other doctors, who is asking for help.

I almost feel myself tremble at the sight of the vampire's weak body being dragged to the middle of the cell. I swallow hard as they tie his hands and put the mask on his face and tighten it on his neck, afraid of him maybe biting them, though I doubt he would.

They practically start playing with him-it's quite ugly. The toss him from one side of the cell to the other like a football and every time he ends up on one side they stake him or kick him very hard.

His body soon gets bruised and battered and blood flows from his sides. Big holes in his back refuse to heal as he has no fresh blood in his system to help him heal. They also use knifes and clubs.

They mock him, slap him, kick him, insult him-they humiliate him in every way possible and I think how if he was a human being we would all be gasping and running by his side trying to save him, but since he was a vampire, an animal, we treated him like the devil that he carried in his soul.

I swallow hard when Jake's knife cuts so deep on his right side that I can actually see his rib, but I don't look away, because I know that even though my father is very carefully observing what's going on, he also glances at me, trying to figure out if I can take it and I can't disappoint.

The entire time while they were torturing him, he would glance up and look at me, as if asking why are we doing this to him, but he would only get my stern look and nothing else.

He was very stoic and strong despite the awful state he was in. No matter what they did to him, he didn't fall on his knees, he proudly stood and let them torture him, but never bend down, he tried not to flinch or grunt in pain as well, he surely couldn't beg, but he wasn't attempting at it either.

At the end, when he was barely standing on his feet, they stopped the tossing around and placed him in the center of the cell again. Then they picked their wooden clubs and started hitting him-mostly his back and his stomach.

They were honestly quite pissed off at him. No vampire ever got to this point. Not conscious anyway. I remember seeing only one case like this. My father loved experimenting on that vampire back then, but he killed himself in an attempt to leave this place and that was my dad's greatest disappointment. I felt like he would love working on this one now-it was all over his face and I somehow felt guilty about it all.

The vampire refused to give up and fall on his knees-he was unbreakable, despite the fact that he was so hungry and hurt. At the end Jake and Tom got tired of it all and just tripped him and he ended up on the ground with a heavy grunt-even then he tried to stand up and if it wasn't Tom's foot on his chest, he might've actually made it.

"Unbelievable" my father gasped next to me as he rubbed his chin and came closer to the cell to observe the vampire dying from pain on the ground "We got ourselves a different one here."

"What do you plan to do with him?" I ask, trying to hide my shaky voice. My father just smiled and put his hand on my shoulder squeezing it tightly

"He's just a vampire, Elena" I guess he saw that deep down I felt bad for him and I hated myself for being this weak "A different one, but still a vampire. He deserves it, don't forget it" I nod and smile at him, maybe he didn't actually realized I was guilty, maybe he was trying to give me another lesson "Give him a shot of blood, not too much though and fill his file. It's incomplete." he orders and glances one last time at the vampire lying on the ground before exiting. I can see he's already picking the phone from his pocket.

He's going to call doctor Whitmore, which meant he was hoping he would intrigue him.

Meanwhile I watched as the hunters tied the vampire, whose name I still didn't know, even though I practically saw them turning his inside out ten minutes ago, back to the wall and then left me the keys, so I can deal with him later.

He was barely conscious.

And he still looked at me, refusing to believe that this is actually true.

I saw the tears in his eyes and they burned me. He wouldn't let them spill though-he was unbreakable, even though he was so helpless.

In his worst, he still seemed the strongest one of us all.

 **Stefan's POV**

I don't know how much time I've spent here. How many days has it been? How long?

I only remember waking up every now and then, I didn't realize if it was day or night or what was going on at all, I only knew the guard, some boy with a ruffled blond hair, would come and yell at me to stop struggling. Then minutes, or maybe hours later, I woke up again when that same person poured a bucket of ice cold water on me. After that, it was harder for me to even lose consciousness, it hurt too much.

And then the girl came back. This time with those hunters, who caught me and another man, also dressed in white scrubs with big glasses on and the same brown hair as her-I assumed they were related, they looked very much alike.

I don't know why, but I couldn't take my eyes off her even when they beat the shit out of me. I wanted her to stop this, but I knew she wouldn't, I have no idea what I was even hoping for. But I knew this-there was compassion in her eyes, even for a brief moment, it was there and despite all that cruelty around me, I believed that she could be the key out of this prison.

Maybe one day…if it's even possible.

I was actually starting to lose hope, that I could escape. As far as I could tell, even in my drunk in pain state, the doors were heavy and metal, there were guards outside, who came in to check on us every two hours, and God knows what else I would find in the hallways if I even dared run or have the opportunity for it. I was exhausted, I haven't fed in a long time and the wounds on my back haven't even healed when they started humiliating me while the girl and who I assumed might've been her father watched me.

I wouldn't give in so easily, though.

While they tossed me around, I thought of my big brother, who always taught me never to bow my head down for anyone. I remember it vividly that one time when father has got mad after I broke my mom's old porch swing set, he got so angry at me, that he whipped my back for about an hour in the back yard.

I cried my ass out and our nanny was silently weeping as she watched me from the kitchen window. My brother's wasn't home that day, he usually went downtown with his friends to grab a beer or just take a walk, he couldn't stand staying in the house with father so he avoided it at all cost.

When my father was done, I remained lying on the grass, embarrassed, with my back and ass bloody from the beating, it hurt so damn much that I thought I would pass out, but I clenched my fists and grit my teeth hoping for it to just stop hurting. When Damon got home, he ran to me and carefully raised my up in his embrace. I was so ashamed, that I refused to look him in the eyes, so he lifted my chin up and gave me a serious look.

" _Listen carefully" he said "You are a Salvatore. You don't bow your head to anyone, even if it's your own father, do you understand me, brother?" he asked and I have simply nodded through tears "You're so much stronger than you assume" he has continued gently now "Find what it is inside you that gives you that strength and hold on to it for dear life."_

I smiled as I remembered my brother and wished I could see him right now. It's been so long since we got to be together and ever since we've turned we were never on great terms. But the last time…well that last time was nice, we actually got to talk to each other and we grabbed a drink. I wish I could go back to that time. Or actually back to my childhood, which was also painful, but at least I wasn't a monster back then.

Maybe those people who were torturing me were right-I was nothing but a monster. Maybe, in a way, I deserved this, after all the lives I've taken. Maybe it was how it should be.

That didn't mean I would surrender though.

After they realized that they can't bring me to my knees, they tripped me just to mock me and then chained me back to the wall. This time I kept my head up, despite the pain and leaned it on the cold damp wall behind me. My body was hot, radiating with pain, blood was coming down my chest, soaking my old black jeans, my entire being and the cold wall behind me somehow made it a bit better, for which I was glad. I knew I would probably lose consciousness soon, but then again I heard the cell door open and when I looked up, I saw the girl come up inside with a medical bag and a file in hand.

The guard blond boy let her in and said that if she needs anything he'll be right outside. The other vampires were relatively quiet in their cells, it was late in the evening and they were all tired from today's tortures. But the silence, that surrounded me while they were beating me, was excruciating. It was a heavy silence, it made your lungs burn with fire.

"You're not going to try and do something stupid now, are you?" the girl, Elena, I remember her name now, asks and I almost wish to laugh, but they never took this mask that was keeping my teeth away from tearing their necks so I just look at her and hoped she could read my eyes.

I didn't hate her. How could I hate a child? God knows what got her down here. We all have our reasons and I know well enough what it's like to be 17 and confused and to make mistakes and she seemed even older. But a child nonetheless. She must be in college. Yet in a way she was stronger, bossy, she walked around and told all those guys what to do and they listened to her. She reminded me of Lexi.

She kneeled down at took out a syringe filled with blood. She noticed how much I hated this and yet she had to do what she was told, so I squeezed my eyes when she gave me the shot and let the small amount of blood fill me in, even though I didn't really want it.

As I thought about it, though, I wasn't exactly going to turn into a ripper now, in those circumstances, so maybe that was good-maybe it would help me control myself better once I'm out of here. If I ever get out.

"This will start the healing process, but your deepest wounds probably won't close" she explained and this time she seemed somehow gentler than before, when she took out a knife and made that deep cut on my chest.

I couldn't get why she was suddenly so good to me. Or maybe it was temporarily, maybe tomorrow she would be torturing me again. Or watch me being tortured-those aren't too different.

I shut my eyes open again and felt some of the cuts close as well as a few of the bruises fading, but indeed, as she has said, the blood wasn't enough to close my wounds. It was just to keep me alive. I flinched uncomfortably, disturbed by the pain from the two big holes in my chest and I guess he noticed it, because she spoke up again

"Why did they leave this on you?" she nodded at the mask on my face and leaned closer to take it off. I bowed my head down for a moment, letting her get this away from me and once she did, a loud grunt escaped my lips "Don't bite, alright? Cause if you do, the guy up front will come and finish what the hunters started." she was back to threatening "I also have a stake in my back pocket so I wouldn't attempt to be a smartass if I were you."

I chuckled lightly and shook my head. This girl was something alright.

"Okay, now I need to finish our conversation from the previous night since your file is empty" she crossed her legs and took out the file and a pen from her pocket "I'm going to ask you a few questions."

"And what…do I get in return?" I ask instead and she furrows her eyebrows

"You're not in the position to receive anything, you realize that, right?" she responds with a serious voice, but I can see that she's smiling. "Alright, now tell me your name?"

"Do you want the number too or…?" I joke and she chuckles as she shakes her head and looks down for a moment. I don't know how I find it in myself to fool around now. Maybe it's because I know far too well that's the only thing that could make today bearable "Gosh, I had no idea this thing…whatever it is, is so serious. Do I need to buy you a ring next?" her laugh fills the cell and I smile, despite the fact that she's my torturer, that she's probably going to watch my guts spill on the ground tomorrow and not do a single thing to change it, despite the fact that deep down I hated this place and her father…and even her for doing this to me. I just…couldn't help myself for a reason I probably didn't even realize yet.

"Come on, be serious for once" she tries again and I smile sadly to myself, which she notices

"Why, you're going to ask them to torture me again if I don't?" I know the answer to that question and when she actually nods and goes back to being serious, I remember the reality here. She might be a pretty girl, but she's part of something awfully ugly. And she can't even see it.

"My name is Stefan Salvatore" I say and she starts writing down in a hurry

"When did you turn?" she asks next and I smile, remembering the time when I woke up alive after my father has killed me and my brother. It was a cold September night and the fall has just settled in.

"In 1864" I respond and she stops writing as she throws me a glance and hurries to burry herself back in paperwork "I'm a grandpa" I joke again and she smiles while she keeps writing

"Any diseases before and after you turned?"

"Well…I had something like… what you call asthma these days, when I was a child. Then after I turned, I was sick a few times after drinking…bad blood. Other than that, no. Not really."

"How old were you when you turned?" she asks next, trying to stay emotionless

"Seventeen" I respond and she looks up. I see that something disturbs her here.

Maybe she realizes that I was just a child when it all happened, not even 18, I had my whole life ahead of me and then I…I died.

Sometimes I think about it too. I wonder what would've happened if we never met Katherine, if I've stayed at home, helped my brother run the estate, maybe found a nice girl and settled down. Have kids. I've always wanted kids. As many as she could give me, I would fill my house with boys and girls, I would teach them how to ride a horse and help them put their shoes on, sneak them some candy when their mother isn't looking or read them bedtime stories.

Yeah, sometimes I imagined that. And it hurt more than those wounds in my chest.

"How did you die?" I'm not sure she has this question in there, but she's still writing down, so I assume that's some valuable information for her

"My father shot me in the chest." I reply and she gives me a surprised look

"Your own father killed you?" she asks again and I nod, thinking bitterly about how things turned out later. How I…ended his life, how awfully guilty I felt. "How could a father kill his seventeen year old son?" she says it as if to herself, wondering how this is possible, she can never understand how it was back then, because she'll never live through it. "What could you have possible done at seventeen?"

"I fell in love" I smiled sadly "And she was not exactly human." Elena stares at me for a while and I feel like she can actually see right through me and for a moment I dared hope I wasn't wrong. She swallows hard and I wonder if she really thinks of me as a monster right now. Does she believe I am so bad? That I have no soul like her father told her when they were torturing me?

Could she see what I saw in Katherine? Could she consider me a human being even if I lost that 160 years ago?

She places down the file and digs into her back pocket, taking out a small knife and for a moment I think how stupid I actually am to believe she will stop torture me and see things from my point of view-yes, I was bad, I had killed so many times and I deserved this pain right now, but I also carried a soul, just like her, my feelings they didn't go away, my ability to love or even hate it didn't vanish like she thinks. I was made of other things besides the bloodlust even if that dominates sometimes and I let it control my life.

She raises her hand to my hand and here I am thinking how she'll stab me, so I squeeze my eyes and tense and then I feel the vervain ropes getting loose. I look up and realize that she's letting my hand free.

I guess she is surprised that I don't take the opportunity to grab her neck and shove her to the other side of the cell, maybe she knows well enough that I am not that strong now and that I couldn't unchain myself under any circumstances, so she's giving me a minute to breathe-a minute out of this hell.

And my hand lands on the big hole in my chest, because that hurts too much right now and I press it, trying to stop the blood from leaving my body. For a moment I close my eyes and try not to give in to the pain but it's too much.

And then I feel her gentle warm fingers removing my hand away and I almost jump sacredly from her. But she shakes her head and gives me a small smile as she tears a big piece from her scrubs and wraps it tightly over my shoulder, preventing my wound from bleeding more.

I let her do her job and watch her carefully as her fingers swiftly move over my chest without me even feeling them. I observed her and my breath got stuck in my throat-she's breathtakingly beautiful. And not only because she looked like Katherine.

Actually, she was nothing like her, even though they had the same appearance. I felt like Elena carries herself in a whole different way, she smiled politely one day and then tortured me the next and the thing was-I would let her hurt me just to see her beautiful brown eyes stare at me with that compassion that she's giving me now.

When she starts moving her hand away, I take gently grab it, trying not to scare her too much, but she still jumps away and I smile sadly-I feel like she's afraid I can turn her into a vampire with only one touch or drain her of her blood in seconds. I pull away as well afraid that I might've hurt her and then let my hand hang lifelessly to my side.

We have one uncomfortable minute of sharing nothing but awkward silence until she clears her throat and grabs my hand sternly, as if she's angry that she's let her guard down and helped a vampire. She doesn't say anything and I let her tie my hand back against the wall, the vervain burns my wrist, but the pain is nothing like the one in the rest of my body. I don't struggle, I don't fight, I don't even dare move, I let her do her thing and make sure I won't be running anywhere.

"What will happen to me?" I ask her in a whisper, barely audible, my voice is hoarse and I wish I could burn down all the pain and sorrow with a glass of bourbon.

She lets go of my hand, finally and avoids my look while packing her stuff and shoving everything else in her bag.

"Please…tell me the truth" I ask for her and I don't know if it's the sound of my voice or the fact that I'm just a despicable picture of a bleeding vampire lying helplessly on the floor, but she looks me in the eyes and after a loud annoyed sigh she speaks up

"Today was just a beginning" she states without a trace of guilt in her voice. I wondered how she did it. One moment she was good and kind and the next she hated me with her entire human being "Tomorrow is what you should fear, because that's when the real torture comes. We will experiment on you, cut your insides out, leave you to bleed on this floor, starve you to death, destroy you completely." she stands up and starts leaving "My father will turn your life into a living hell."

"Oh, girl" I smiled and she gave me a confused look "I've been through more hells than you can count."

* * *

 **A/N: Thank you all for the reviews and the follows! I plan to make this fanfiction shorter than the others so the action will proceed faster. I'm kind of experimenting with it all, I had other fanfictions started, but I chosed to post this one, because I felt like writing about it more. Now to answer your questions-Caroline is not a vampire. She's just Elena's friend and roommate and she is involved with the Augustines just like Elena is, she's familiar with the supernatural world and she's helping with the experiments. Matt is more of a guard guy, but he is also aware of the vampires as I explained in this chapter. And when it comes to Defan, I do not particularly plan on going too much into detail with them, but there will be Defan stuff and I plan for Damon to appear later in the story. Thank you all again and enjoy.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Elena's POV**

It's been about two days since I last came down to the cells, as my father decided that I could use the break. I've been swamped with school work and I actually screwed up on one of my anatomy tests, so I had to retake it and with my father's help, he managed to convince the professor and let me do it again.

I was a bit ashamed of myself for not handling things that good these days, but my father wasn't judging towards me-I think he was just too busy with his own research and he was still very interested in the new vampire.

I don't know what he was doing to him lately, but I swear to God, that sometimes at night, I could hear the yelling coming from downstairs and it was terrifying me. Our dorms were only inhabited by people who were part of the Augustines, so nobody was bothered by it, except me.

Ever since Stefan came here, I couldn't shake the feeling, that something was just plain wrong. Yet, I was spending my days convincing myself that this was the right thing for me to do and that I should spent even more time helping my father, as I knew far too well that the Whitmore family will help me further with my education and even that of my brother. I had no right to screw up.

So when I wasn't torturing vampires, who had no souls or understanding of what it meant to be human anymore, I spent my time either studying or going to pointless parties with Caroline.

The more I tried to push away the thought of Stefan and the entire Augustine society, however, the more it settled down and I often found myself going through the archive downstairs and checking the folders for peculiar cases like Stefan's.

I read a lot and I actually found it very educating. There was this professor, I think he was Aaron Whitmore's great grandfather, who had numerous notebooks in which he put down his observations. He didn't seem like the rest of the people here-there was something different in the way he spoke about the vampires. It's not that he didn't hurt them like we did-he was actually very cruel and most of the ways we used for torture now, we've adopted from him, but he always wondered whether or not vampires still have souls after they turned. Moreover, he tried to find ways in order to figure out if he was wrong or right.

So I began wondering too. I began questioning my decisions.

All this time, I was blindly following everything my father's ever told me about the vampires and I was convinced, there's no other view on the matter. For some reason Stefan's deep green eyes, were what pushed me to ask myself, if we were right in the first place.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that nothing about him made sense. I've seen vampires before, many of them-they barely talked, they surely didn't bother to fight us as much once we've started experimenting on them and usually at the end they just wanted it all over it, so they welcomed death willingly. They were letting their bloodlust control them and they left all thought behind, if they even had the ability to think straight.

But Stefan…he was different. It's not that he didn't suffer as much as the rest of them, but he seemed…somehow in piece with what was happening. As if he believed he deserved it.

Every time they hit him when I saw it happen, he winced, but gritted his teeth as if he knew it's just something he has to go through, because of who he is. I'm positive that he hated us, that much I was certain of.

And as I walked down the stairs now and held his file, which told me that my father has cut out his liver , smashed his knee with a hammer and then took some of his bone marrow, all less than 24 hours ago, I was certain he would be pissed. I still couldn't wait to see him.

It was one of the worst days of the month and it was my turn to deal with it-every once in a while we had to take all vampires off their cells and check out how they're doing. Those who were simply too weak and who no longer could even heal, we took out and the hunters killed them.

I think it's needless to say that this was Tom and Jake's favorite time of the month. They would often fool around and play with the vampires before killing them. Usually, they let them go in this close place in the backyard or the nearest forest and let them think they're free, then they started shooting wooden bullets at them, later they would set a fire and burn their skins, it was awful. I honestly preferred the torture in my father's lab, instead of this.

"Hey, Matt" I greeted my old friend and he smiled as he opened the heavy metal door leading to the cells. He's been waiting me for a while, but I was late on purpose-I didn't want to get on with this "How are they doing?" I ask as I turn to the left, waiting to see Stefan in the second cell, but he was nowhere to be found

"They're hungry and ignorant to their fate." he smiled "Did you consider my dinner suggestion for tonight or?" he asked optimistically and I gave him an apologetic smile.

Matt's been trying to get me to date him for months, if not a year already and it's not like I've been completely ignoring him, I actually went out a few times with him, it was just that…it somehow didn't feel right for me. Ever since we kissed a few weeks back, I've been trying to come up with various reasons why I can't go out with him anymore and Caroline was scolding me wherever she heard me talking with him over the phone. She considered him a good match for me and I always told her to just shut up.

"I'm sorry, I have a Chemistry test tomorrow morning and I'm still not done studying so" I mumbled nervously under my nose as he picked out the keys for the cells from his back pocket and smiled at me. He knew I was lying, yet he was persistent enough to keep asking me.

"That's fine. I'll be too tired after this most probably" he came up with an argument of his own, just so I wouldn't feel that bad. Poor old Matt.

"Where's 4523?" I asked, desperate to change the topic as I nodded to the empty cell where Stefan should be

"Your father made me lock him in another one last night. He was being too much of a trouble after they brought him back from his lab."

"He yelled too much?" I continued my interrogation as I watched him start unlocking the cells and bring all vampires forward, tying them to the bars with vervain ropes after they were already sedated with shots before that

"Not really. He was trying to find his way out." he announced calmly, but I knew he was surprised, so was I. Usually when we brought the vampires back, they would cry from pain for hours, leaving Matt sleepless and without the possibility of getting any rest. "Kept shaking the bars and made everyone restless too."

"So he's leading a rebellion, that's interesting" I smiled and shook my head. What was it about this vampire that made him so different?

"It wasn't that interesting when the hunters came by to give him a lesson. It was educational for everyone. They tied him in the middle of the hallway and beat the shit out of him in front of everyone. They also forbid me from giving him his blood ration last night."

"It's good they settled things down" I say, even though I don't think it and sit down on the chair he would stay when he's guarding, while he takes all vampires out.

When he's done, I start checking each and every one of them and whoever seems too weak and on the verge of completely breaking down, I make Matt pull them forward. By far they were two of them-weak ones and not really that old.

I don't know if they've managed to live even five years of vampire life. I think Stefan was one of the oldest here now, which is what probably makes him so rebellious and strong. We only had one more who was around 100 years old and she wasn't in her best shape right now. It was awful to see how a creature, which is supposed to be almost invincible can actually collapse in your feet from exhaustion.

When I was younger, I wondered how was it even possible for them to get weaker with time until I realized how serious my father's experiments on them were-they didn't just torture them, they took things from them-body parts, blood cells, even brain and they pumped them up with so much vervain as well as other medications, which modified their ability to heal until at one point, it prevailed and they stopped completely healing, by which time, we wouldn't really need them anymore.

By the time I got to Stefan, I was so tired that I was about to pass by him and just get it over with-he was the last one I had to check, everyone else, Matt was already putting in their cells or taking out for the hunters to play with-the hallway was empty, but Stefan was there, just where Matt left him when he took him out-his hands behind his back and tied to the bars.

He looked terrible-there were scars all over his body, a big cut on his side, which seemed to be starting to heal, but he was barely holding himself on his feet, it was obvious that he's supporting himself on the bars, though what was worse was the big hole on the left side of his head, which was bleeding even now.

"God, who did this to you?" I gasped, without even realizing, that I shouldn't be talking to him like I actually care. I pushed all those thoughts at the back of my mind and reached out to untie him, however he pulled away when I stretched my hand, probably afraid that I'll hurt him, so I raised my hands up and smiled "I won't hurt you" I promised and he just grunted in my direction

"Your people did this to me" he let out angrily as I kneeled down to find the ropes and untie his hands from the bars, which could give him a moment to get away, then again he wasn't so stupid, thankfully, because he didn't attempt anything, and waited patiently as I tied his hands and slowly guided him inside the cell.

I might be fond of him, but I wasn't stupid-he was still a vampire and he could very much hurt me. I locked the cell behind us while he limped to his cot, which was bloody, probably from his wounds

"Well you've been quite disobedient yesterday, they had to give an example" I explained as I settled down on the cot next to him and pulled my medical bag closer. "Let me see this" I caught his head with my hands and pulled him to me, so I could see better-there wasn't enough light here and it was hard to see, but I knew the wound was deep and it wasn't healing at all. He surprisingly pushed away before I've even touched the hurt place and I furrowed my eyebrows

"I don't need your help" he grunted and moved away from me once again, which made me cross my hands and stare down at him angrily

"Stefan, because of your stupidity and stubbornness, they not only beat your ass last night, but didn't give you blood. I'm guessing they won't do so today either, so that pretty big wound which is currently oozing so ugly, won't close and the pain will keep you awake."

"And why do you even care? You watched as they hurt me and you didn't even flinch" he responds even angrier. All the pain has finally taken its toll on him and he was no longer patient.

He hated me-I saw in his eyes, but that was fine, because I hated him too.

"I don't. But I really can't take any of my father's scolding tomorrow, just because I've left his currently favorite vampire to bleed out on the floor and made it impossible for him to experiment on." I explained and he huffed even more annoyed with me "Come on, stop being such a pain in the ass and just let me fix this" I tried convincing him and he finally relaxed and leaned back on the wall, which made me calm down as well. It was intense sometimes, to be in the same cell with another vampire.

I came closer to him and carefully pulled out the bandages, still nervous around him, afraid he'll throw himself at me and bite me any minute now. I knew vervain doesn't exactly work on him like it did on the other vampires, but I was hoping he won't do anything stupid. Even if he did try to escape, there were hundreds of hunters and guards waiting for him outside. He wouldn't make it far even if he wanted to.

"Where did you take all those vampires?" he asked when I started cleaning the wound and felt him tense under me. It was hard to work in this damn cell-it was the worst one of them all, which I'm sure was another punishment for Stefan, it was colder and damper than the rest of them and while he was sitting on the cot, I was up and pushing his head closer to me so I can see what I was doing.

"The hunters are going to kill them" I explained with a sigh and saw him clenching his fists angrily

"Why?" his voice is hoarse and very serious, it almost made me shiver

"Because they are no longer strong enough for us to work with" I almost felt guilty saying that out loud, which is why I was surprised when he laughed bitterly and moved up to look me in the eyes for a short moment

"You know, you people are the monsters here, not us. What is it that they brainwashed you with? That vampires have no souls after they turn? That we are no capable of any human emotion? That we only live to kill and drink blood? Let me tell you this, little girl, you are all wrong-we love and when we do, it can destroy us and when we hate, we hate so much, it is far worse than any knife your father can stab me with." I almost gasped when I heard his words.

I can't say it didn't surprise me to hear him say it, but also deep down, they sounded familiar, because they've been my own thoughts for these past few days. He was answering my questions. I wondered how he knew that the guy who tortured him was my father, but then again he was a smart one, he must've noticed our resemblance.

"You know nothing about us." he added

"Maybe I don't" I respond, quite angry myself, but also surprised by his words "But I've seen things." I patiently put another gauze on his wound, which turns red almost immediately and I silently curse myself for not being able to stop this, yet on the other side, I feel such deep hatred that I want to left him bleeding on the floor-I'm contradicting myself "I know how you bite into people's neck's and tear them apart, I've seen some of you kill innocents just for the blood and the fact that you're being a saint by pretending not to be feeding off people's blood, doesn't change the fact that you're merciless."

"I'm not saying all of us are good" he responds, no longer angry, but still serious "I am no saint for sure, I've killed many and I've done horrible things, especially after I first turned"

"Because you were heartbroken?" I ask, realizing that I might be overstepping here

"No" he shook his head and I steadied it back, because he was ruining my bandage "Because I was young and the bloodlust is just so strong at this point, that you want to revel in and forget everything that happened to you. It's just that easy. It gives you power and freedom and who doesn't want that?" I pressed one of the gauzes and he grunted from the pain

"Hold still, you're making it harder for me." I scold him and he doesn't respond "Pass me that bandage over there" I ask of him and he reaches out. While I wait for him to get it, I stare down at his strong body and notice the tattoo of a rose on his left arm, the one pressed close to me, which makes me wonder how he got it and what does it mean "Now just stop moving" I ordered again and started tightening the bandage around his head

"It's too tight" he mumbled and I froze, almost wishing to slap him in the face

"Oh yeah, cause you know so much about medicine, right, vampire?" I mock him and he clears his throat and gives me a smug smile

"Actually, I was a medic during World War two" he explains "And I know that's too tight. I've bandaged more wounded soldiers than you'll ever see in your lifetime, little princess" he mocks and I almost drop the bandage surprised by his statement

"You were a medic during the war?" I ask surprised and he chuckles "But you're a vampire!"

"See the irony? I was a vampire and I helped your kind and you're a doctor and you're torturing mine. Something to think on, huh, little princess?"

"Stop calling me that!" I punch him in the arm and he squirms underneath me, which makes me want to take it all back-I think I really kind of hurt him, but he manages to get himself together and even raises his hand and grabs mine gently. At first, I jump surprised by this, but he holds me tight and takes my palm in his

"Look, get your index finger like this" he shows and raises my hand back to his head "And put it between the bandage, while moving it a bit to see how tight it is, alright? If you can't move it, then it's too tight, if there's too much space, you need fix it" he explains patiently and though it's a very logical thing to do, it never occurred to me. I put my finger between the last tops of the bandage and realize that he was right all along, but of course I wouldn't admit it. Not to him. "See, you were going to squeeze my brain out of my head."

"It is a very thick head, you can use some space in there" I joked and he laughs "Where did you even learn all this? How were you a soldier during the war?"

"A medic I met there showed me some tricks while we were working together. We were usually in pairs while we were helping the wounded on the battlefield."

"But how did you control yourself?" I was even more curios now, that all seemed impossible to me, but I still wanted to hear it. I couldn't believe he was living during such times, that he witnessed them.

"The same way I'm doing so now." he explained simply "Blood is not everything, despite what you think. We are not so different from you and if you believe, that just because we heal, that somehow justifies all the pain you inflict on us, you're wrong." I remain silent after he says that and start fixing the bandage again, following his advice to check how tight it is, surprisingly this time he doesn't object

"What was it like?" I ask again and he raises his eyebrow confused "During the war?"

"Awful and bloody. Too much death that just cripples you. And that comes for a person, who carries death inside him" he smiles sadly as he grits his teeth "The war is pointless and innocents suffer from it. It was like this during World War II and it's like this when I was younger."

"You saw war when you were young?" I asked as I finally finished the bandage and moved to my bag to throw the rest of the supplies in it. He touched his head and smiled as he gave me a grateful nod for doing this for him

"I can see history wasn't your favorite subject at school?" he jokes and I shrug "The Civil War, little princess."

"Weren't you too young for that one?" I asked surprised, but happy that I can still at least count right even if my history facts were a bit blurry. He nods as he leans back on the cold wall and tiredly stares at me. His bare chest a resemblance of a Greek god, despite the fact that it's so bloody and battered, he looked so beautiful.

"I was sixteen, but my brother was older so he was drafted. I refused to let him go alone, so I went with him, despite his and my father's efforts to stop me. I ran away and joined too. It took me a while to get back to my brother, but I found him. It wasn't untypical for that time. Boys younger than me joined too, believing that they're fighting for some great cause, just like you do today. Many of them died."

"You didn't" I point out and he shrugs as if it's not a big deal "You must've loved your brother very much if you were living to give your life for him."

"I did." he nods and scratches the back of his head as if nervous by all my questions "There was no choice to make back then. I just did what I had to and I did not regret it."

"What happened then?" I ask and he raises his eyebrows in a typical devilish way

"You ask too many questions, little princess" he jokes, but when he sees I'm serious, he decides to answer me "We both got wounded and barely survived. They sent us home and on our way there we were half-dead. I still remember reaching out to grab his hand and wait until he squeezes back, just to be sure, that he's still alive. I think that if he wasn't, I would've died as well and I would've never made it back home." I nod and think carefully on what he just said, wondering how awful it must've been for him to go through war at sixteen and get hurt, just because he loves his brother and would do anything for him

"Now it's my turn to ask questions" he gives me another one of his smirks and I sigh, pretending to be annoyed "Oh, don't be pouty, it's more like a request. I won't interrogate you like you did."

"What is it?" I ask, refusing to acknowledge the fact that I was having a normal conversation with a vampire

"Since I'm not getting out of this cell soon, can you at least describe what's going on outside? I wish I could see the sky right now. Is it evening? Morning? Noon?" he asked and he looked at me like a little kid, begging for some candy.

My heart clenched as I watched him. I couldn't believe he wanted me to tell him this. I thought this would end up being some blackmailing, but here we were-he was asking for my help to imagine what freedom was like-it made me hate myself even more.

"You're serious about this?" I ask again and he nods enthusiastically. He looked so pale and broken, yet I still felt like my dad could reach out and grab his heart, yank it off and he would still be smiling at me in this goofish way and refuse to give, just because there was something inside him-a different kind of spark, that kept him alive. I wondered what would happen when he loses it. Will he one day be a vampire I have to pick out for killing like the once I chose today. "You don't want blood or something else, but this?"

"Well now that you put it like this, I really miss my coffee" he says completely seriously

"But you're a vampire! You don't eat or drink!"

"Doesn't mean I don't enjoy doing so! What, just cause I'm a vampire, I can't be anything like the person I was before? Do you think I don't have sex either, _because I'm a monster and all I think about is blooood_ " he joked on the last few words and spoke them with a girly intonation, clearly mocking me

I stood up abruptly, pretending to leave and I felt his cold hand on my wrist yet again, making me shiver

"Come on, don't be a pouty face, little princess" there was desperation in his voice now "Don't leave a guy hanging."

"You know I'm not supposed to even be talking to you, Stefan" I turn around and cross my hands on my chest angrily. He sighs and leans back on the wall, probably because he's too tired to even keep himself sitting straight

"Yet that somehow doesn't include you drooling all over my hard sexy chest?"

"I am not DROOLING!" I raise my voice significantly when I remember that we're surrounded by other vampires in their cells, who are most probably too sedated to be even listening to us, but still…we were not alone. Matt could come here any minute now. "You self-absorbed ass!"

"It's okay, little princess, it's all fine to want me. Many before you did." he winks and I kick his leg, making him laugh out loud, ignoring all pain I'm putting him through "There's no shame in admitting it."

"For the last time-I AM NOT DROOLING, SALVATORE!" I yell at him, but this just makes him laugh even more.

When I really decide to leave his sorry selfish ass behind and lean down to grab my bag, he grabs my hand again and looks me in the eyes, this time seriously-there's so much pain in there and I hate myself for being part of those who inflict it on him.

"Come on, don't be the monster here" he whispers seriously now "Look at me" he raises his hand to his bloody head and I notice that the bandage was already soaking again "I'm bleeding out and I'll soon lose consciousness. Give the poor man what he wants before the darkness consumes him yet again. "

I sigh, pretending to be hating this, when I sat down on the cold floor, his hand still in mine.

"Close your eyes, smart ass" I asked of him and he smiled gratefully, before obliging. I was so confused by how naïve he was-I could drive a stake through his heart whenever I wanted and he would still trust me when I told him to do something. "Alright I'm not sure how I really should be doing this" I admitted and he squeezed my hand "I guess it should be a late in the morning right now" I lied to him, because in fact, it was a dark cold night out there, yet I didn't know how to describe that, so I just figured I'll pick the day and imagine something, it can't be that hard

"Is it sunny?" he asked and I sighed. Okay, it will be hard

"Kinda"

"Really? That's your best response?" he opened one eye and raised his eyebrow " _Kinda?_ Do you young people not read? Are you so illiterate that you can't describe what's going on around you? Or are you just used to being blind?"

"Alright, alright, grandpa, this isn't exactly easy!" I responded annoyed and tried again "It was pretty cold when I left my room, but the sun was just rising, so I would assume it's already hot like hell outside." he smiles as I talk and leans back on the wall, looking very tired 'There are people, many people, walking around campus or downtown" I wasn't really supposed to give him any details, he didn't know where he was exactly and it had to stay this way "The dogs are lazily sleeping in the shadows or running near the hoses when people decide to clean their cars. There isn't a single damn cloud up in the sky to make you feel at least a bit better and you are once again reminded how small and insignificant you are to the entire world." I added a few more stupid sentences and when I was done he seemed happy. Once he opened his eyes, I swear I could see the tears there.

He made an attempt to move up from the wall, but ended up staggering and I pushed him down the cot. He lied and smiled, starting to lose consciousness-he was tired and I had no idea how bad must've been yesterday, but it looked like he was hurt like hell.

"Thank you, little princess" he mumbled barely audible and I smiled as I watch him close his eyes.

For some reason, I felt so awful for him being in this state, and the more I stared at him, the more I realized, that maybe he was right-not all vampires are monsters.

When I heard Matt coming back, I rushed outside and locked his cell as I glanced one last time at his already sleeping self and promised that I'll bring him some coffee next time.

* * *

 **A/N: I'm sorry for not updating earlier, I'm really busy with college. Thank you for all your reviews and hope you enjoy!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Stefan's POV**

I wake up from someone's kick in my stomach. I must've fallen from the cot while I was sleeping, because my body is colder than usually and I feel that I'm shivering. The bandage Elena made two days ago is heavy on my head, making the headache and the pain there even worse.

Ever since I started pulling up a fight with the guards, kicking them whenever they came to my cell or showing them my teeth to scare them, things just got even worse for me. They were afraid at first, I was after all, the only one who was still restlessly trying to get out of here, but then they started enjoying teasing me as well.

They would bring the small vial of blood they had to give me, tie me to the bars and open my mouth-but they would never pour the blood in there, they would spill it all over my head and I would lick the few drops fallen near my mouth. Then they would leave me tied up like this, knowing far too well that this was torture-I could smell the blood everywhere on me, but I couldn't actually drink it. They were also never too bored to kick me in the ribs or look for the last place where Gilbert cut my body, just so they would dig their knives in the wound and wait for me to scream.

But that's the thing.

I never screamed.

No matter what, I bit my tongue and tasted my own blood, but I never gave them the satisfaction of knowing my pain. They never could, anyway, I've been through so much in my life, they could never comprehend it. But I wasn't about to start giving up now and let them see even a piece of me.

They were monsters, and monsters should never be let in for they can destroy you with a snap of their fingers.

I think the only person I was giving something to, was the little princess. The doctor's daughter, Elena. She was a feisty one, a different one. I haven't met a girl like her in a very long time and even though her resemblance with Katherine at first scared me way too much than I wanted to admit, later I realized that she was nothing like her.

Yet I wasn't so stupid as to believe that she is a good girl. She could as easily hurt me as she was helping me. She simply hated my kind and she was right to think so-I hated myself too.

Last time when I told her about Damon and us being in the war together, I got back to that moment when we were wounded and wondered what would've happened if I've died. I could've spared myself so much pain.

The pain of watching myself become a murderer, a lost soul, an awful brother, a merciless monster.

I often thought about Damon and where he must be right now, if he's even wondering what's going on with me. Last time we saw each other, he said he's going south, probably New Orleans.

I doubted he'll figure passing by our old family house, where was nothing for us there anymore. Plus, I wasn't even sure if I was still in the Mystic Falls area, though I should be. I don't remember us driving too long after they captured me, but then again I was hurt back then, I might be wrong.

I was scared to admit, that I missed him. That I wished I could see him for at least a few minutes, even though I knew how impossible and dangerous it is for him, so I was left with dreams and memories-of him, of Katherine, of the war. I constantly dreamt. Ever since I came here and they started hurting and experimenting on me, I would dream of things that happened and the truth was-they were more painful than the wounds in my body.

"Get up, vampire!" I heard the harsh cold voice as they kicked me once again and with a grunt I rolled over only to open my eyes and see the hunters staring down at me.

They were as usually dressed in jeans and dark t-shirts with vests on, which made me laugh-they knew that if we hurt them we won't shoot bullets at them. Either way, they carried two guns, a rifle and as usually a knife each and I knew their favorite weapon was the knife.

They liked it more than the wooden bullets, even though I had no idea why. There were also stakes in their back pockets and vervain shots tucked in their vests, though that didn't scare me-I could fight the vervain's effect for a pretty long time if I had the will and strength to do so.

"I said, get up! We don't have all day here, asshole!" he kicked me again and I squirmed in two. One of them leaned down and unchained my leg, but I was tired and I had a hard time standing up.

They kicked me a few more times just to bring back my enthusiasm and I finally got on my feet. I was left with nothing buy my jeans on. I had no shirt or shoes or anything else. I'm pretty sure that I looked like a mess, but that was the least of my problems-I had wounds everywhere, some of them healed, some still bleeding and my head was heavy as if I've drank a couple of nights without a break.

I knew where they were taking me-they would bring me in for Gilbert to experiment and I admit the first few times I was scared as hell, especially when they laid me down on the stretcher, now I was surprisingly indifferent, maybe because I was too tired to even think what he could do to me.

The hunters started kicking me towards the entrance where the sweet blond boy who was guarding was standing with the keys in his hand. He looked at me with disgust while I glanced at the rest of the vampires sleeping in their cells. I assumed it must be early in the morning. There were never any indicators of time down here, but I've seen Grayson's watch on couple of occasions and I knew he comes early in the morning, probably before his day has even started, to deal with me. For some reason I was his favorite vampire to experiment on, or so has Elena said.

"We got so early for this one?" the guard, whose name was Matt as I could read from his tag, yawned "He looks worse than the rest of them."

"It's not my place to question orders, Donovan, so will you just open the damn door" one of the hunters, I think he was Jake, was very bitter this morning as well.

I almost wanted to throw something at them to provoke them and make them hit me, but I decided that I would get hurt today anyway so it wasn't worth it. I was trying to accept pain as a gift, instead of a punishment. After all, I knew how much I deserved it. I've taken many lives.

"You guys still going hunting later? Should I wait for you and give you a hand?" he asked as he finally opened the door and they pushed me in yet another damp hallway

"Yeah, that won't be a bad idea" the other one mumbles and spats his gum in the bin on his way out. They exchange a few more words before I start staggering and losing all ground underneath me so they have to catch me before I've fallen. They curse, probably because they're scared that Grayson will scold them for bringing me in such condition but as we finally make it to his favorite room and they open the door, the doctor is not the only one waiting for me.

There was also Elena.

As soon as the hunters dragged me inside and she turned to look at me, I saw the confusion on her face. She looked at her father who was cleaning up his tools, ready to just stab me with them in a few minutes

"Dad, really?" she raised her voice "Why did you bring him? I thought you were going to let me try for the first time on someone…less problematic?" she choose her words carefully as she granted me a disgusted look. I understood her, she couldn't let it show that there was something between us, but did she have to be so cold-hearted?

She looked at me as if I'm just a toy for her to play with and suddenly she was stubbornly stomping her foot on the ground because I was not the right one. It made me sick just looking at them.

"No, I want you to work on him. I want to see how you'll manage" her father says seriously, without any emotion as he turns around with a shot of vervain and then nods at the hunters "Tie him up, please" he orders and when you listen to him you could think he's the best and kindest person out there, yet he was dark and cruel. And he was turning his daughter into the exact same monster.

There were no humans in this room. Only monsters. All of us-we were dead inside, even though their hearts were beating regularly, they were all dead.

Elena didn't have the heart to oppose her father, it was clear that in ways, maybe even she was afraid of him, though I assumed they had a strong bond. She couldn't let him know that she was terrified of doing this and he was oblivious to her slowly trembling hands which she was trying to hide in her pockets.

The hunters pushed me to the bed and once I was up, the tied my hands and feet. Of course, as usually, I tried freeing myself, but in a few minutes of restless tossing I gave up-I just had no strength. Elena avoided looking at me, even when I grunted from pain, her eyes were focused on her father, who finally turned around and pushed the cart with all the surgical instruments to her.

"Okay, let's see how you'll do this." he says as he leans on the metal table close to me "I have a little boy up in the hospital, almost immobile, suffering from a rare disease" he explains and I swallow hard imagining it all "I'll have to cut his leg this afternoon unless I come up with some magical solution to save him, at least for a month and give him time to get stronger and get through with his treatment."

"What does this have to do with me?" Elena asks confused as she stares at the instruments worriedly

"You'll cut off his knee cap and get me out some tissue, I need to figure out a way to come up with this medicine in less than 8 hours, so you better get on with this thing."

"You want me to cut off his kneecap?" she asks, as she tries to hide her trembling voice while he nods "Anything else?"

"If he's doing okay after that we'll see what else is on the list of things we have to do and if you're up for it, you can keep experimenting on him." he says with a smile, obviously happy with her questions. "Now" he steps in 'Since this is 4523 and he has a resistance built for vervain so instead of one shot you'll have to give him five."

"Five?" she raises her voice confused and I chuckle, for the first time showing them that I'm actually here in the room with them. Grayson furrows his eyebrows and without taking any time presses his thumb in one of the wounds on my right side, making me choke. That gets me angry and I start tossing in bed again, which I guess persuades Elena that she has to listen to her father, because she hits me with the first shot and makes me gasp from the pain

"He likes to be a sarcastic ass, don't you, vampire?" her father asks and this time he's the one who's laughing. I look up at Elena and try to say it all with my eyes-that this is wrong, that I'm hurt, that I won't be able to take this for much longer and for a moment, I see the light in her eyes flicker and I swear-this is the same girl, who bandaged my head the other day, the same girl, who described the bold spring morning to me, the same girl, who wondered if there's anything human in me and then the next moment, her father glances at her and her eyebrows furrow and without any trace of humanity left, she hits me with another shot, and another and then another and I start losing all ground underneath me, I start losing my mind, no matter how much I'm fighting it.

I fall in this in between of their reality and my dreams. My body is trained to fight the vervain, which helps me hear their conversation here and there. It certainly doesn't numb the pain-if anything, it's making things worse, I get nervous and want to free myself from the rains, but it's impossible, because I'm too weak.

"If you always give him five shots, how will you even continue experimenting on him for a longer time? This will ruin him faster than the rest of them."

"True." her father answers in the distance as I start losing sight of things-it's one big mess before me and I can hear myself grunting and moving restlessly left and right in the bed, hoping to get free, to disappear, to run "But I'm hoping he's tougher than the others and he'll remain strong for months. Now let's see what you got." I look down and I can see him handing her something, which is probably scissors.

She takes it and cuts my jeans, exposing my leg. I can feel her cold hands touching my and I can sense the pain coming my way, but at the same time I'm consumed by my dreams-it's a strange moment of reality and dreams mixed together.

I close my eyes and hear Elena and her father talking somewhere above me, but I forget all about it as soon as I see Damon before me.

There he's standing in the middle of a field, grass knee-high, slowly swaying as the wind blows. He's dressed in his Confederate's uniform, the same one I had, rifle thrown over his right shoulder, he's smiling and as he sees me, he takes off his hat and stretches his arms

"Damon?" I ask, not believing that it is him. I'm naïve, I want this to be true, I want this to be real, even though I know it can't be. I've been on this field with him, the forest behind him is so damn familiar, that it actually scares me, because I know what happened here-we fought on this field, we fought all day and all night long and it doesn't make sense that things are so quite right now. "Damon, come here!" I yell at him, wanting to desperately protect him. For some reason, my feet are heavy and hurt and I can't lift them fast enough to get to him "Come here!" I beg him, but he just laughs and shakes his head

"Always a pain in my ass, brother" he jokes, but he doesn't move "Why do you have to ruin everything, huh?" he asks again, but I only get more worried and I take another step, but it's just so damn hard to move

"Damon, please, come here, brother!" I beg him and as soon as I do, I can hear the bullets fussing next to me. Damon yells to duck, bur remains standing and I throw myself in his direction, yelling his name. Suddenly, the sky is no longer blue, the wind persistently and strongly blows in my face, bending the grass to the ground, exposing me to ta field full of enemy soldiers. Damon's holding his rifle and still standing up like a lone lost hero and I yell at him.

"Damon! DAMON, COME HERE! DAMON!" I feel a sharp pain down my leg and I open my eyes only to see Elena's trembling hand cutting me from the knee all the way down to my ankle. She looks at me for a moment and I gasp from pain as she opens up her incision using her small yet tough hands

"He's always yelling out that name" I hear her father say, but she doesn't respond as she rips through my leg and I grit my teeth, desperate not to scream.

I would lie if at the end of the day its she who breaks me-not the hunters, not her father, but the only person who talked to me as if I'm also human, as if I have emotions and that is probably what hurt the most.

"It's interesting" he adds, and then looks down closer at Elena's hands, guiding her what and how to do it until there's a knock on the door and he gets called somewhere.

I close my eyes for a moment again, breathing heavily, I can feel her causing me pain, making me burn up inside and I squeeze my eyes shut, hoping that it just will be over with soon. I felt like hours passed, but it can't be more than forty minutes.

"Elena" I grunt hoping that her father won't hear us, but she doesn't lift her head "Elena, God, what are you doing to me?" I ask and she finally stops.

As she glances up, I see her for the first time looking so unbelievably monstrous-her blue scrubs is stained with drops of my blood and her gloves are red, she's nervously sweating, she hates being here yet she got invested in this and she was so lost in it that until I called her out, that she forgot who she was cutting in.

"Elena?" I asked again and for a moment I thought she was so lost, it reminded me of me just after I turned and ripped people's heads off without feeling anything.

"ELENA, come here, please!" her father yelled from the hallway at the same time and she dropped the scalpel and shook her head as if trying to get rid of something possessing her and get back to her senses.

I relaxed back on the pillow-I was so damn tired and the pain was overwhelming. I closed my eyes for a minute and started losing myself in another dream.

This time, it was about Katherine. She was laughing, running in our backyard and I was trying to catch her. Her long grey dress was making it hard for her to move, yet she was somehow faster than me, probably because she was a vampire after all, but I just didn't know that at the time. At the last minute, I caught up with her and gently grabbed her wrist, turning her to me. She laughed as I pushed us both in the grass, near the trees where nobody could see us, and started tickling her. She let me tease her until her laughs became uncontrollable and she rolled us over. With her being on top, she looked down with her beautiful brown eyes, brushed away my hair and then leaned down to kiss me.

The next thing I knew, the pain has returned and I opened up my eyes with a loud gasp, only to see her cutting right through my stomach. This time, her look wasn't cruel-it was lost. When she realized I was back to reality, she stopped cutting and came closer to me

"I'm sorry, Stefan" she said and I could see the tears in her eyes.

She was weeping for her own lost humanity.

She wasn't crying because she was hurting me.

She was crying because she lost herself today.

"I'm so sorry, but my dad, he wanted me to keep going and I just-" she stuttered "I have to do as he says. I don't have a choice" I laughed as I felt her hand squeezing mine. I tightened my grip and felt the sweat coming down my forehead

"You always have a choice, little princess" I smiled as I closed my eyes for a moment again "But by the time you realize it, it will be too late for you. Take it from someone who did the same mistake you're making now" I whispered because I didn't have any strength left anymore. As I looked at her, I saw the confusion on her face-she didn't know what I mean, she couldn't know-she was still, in ways, a child

"Don't lose your true self. You'll never get it back. Not all of it at least" she stared at me confused and I sighed tiredly as I felt her hand let go of mine

"I'll give you more vervain so you wouldn't feel so much pain, okay?" she says in a minute and I feel her stuck the needle in my arm. "I'm sorry" I hear her say once again, but I don't open my eyes-I'm afraid of all the emptiness I'll see there and I don't want to be remind of that same void I feel inside.

So instead, I lose myself in another dream.

This time Damon and I are kids.

 **Elena's POV**

No matter how hard I tried to fall asleep that night, I just couldn't. The memory of me torturing Stefan haunted me throughout the day and when the night fell it was nothing different.

I've always wanted my father to let me experiment on the vampires, to actually allow me to start and finish something for him, instead of just needing my help with the simple things like putting them to sleep or checking out which ones are too weak to even be tortured anymore.

I didn't expect him to test my strength on his favorite vampire. The only one, who somehow still seemed to carry his soul inside, unlike the rest of them lost monsters down there, the only one with whom I had an actual conversation, who told me a little bit about himself, who spoke to me like a person-my father wanted me to torture him of all people.

When the hunters brought him in the room, I was terrified-not because I thought my father might be suspecting something, which is why he orchestrated this-I didn't believe he had the time to think about it, but because it was Stefan and I had to cut his body with a scalpel and cause him pain after I've been helping him up until now.

He seemed calm, strangely calm. As if he expected it all along, as if he knew I would be the one to crush him and he was right-I caused him a lot of pain.

Maybe not as much as my father usually does, but I indeed broke him yet another time. I could see what was going on here-my father was eager to use him as much as he can, he wanted to drain him, just because he believed Stefan was different and he could actually do something with him as he was stronger, but in the meantime, he was actually killing him faster than the rest of them.

The amount of vervain he was giving him just to calm him down and turn him in a good-behaving vampire, was what prevented him from healing at all and what exhausted him.

I noticed all the dirty festered wounds on his body and I sensed the way he was trying to fight the lethal herb-that was one of the things that actually made his situation worse-he was fighting. He had to stop or he would kill himself faster than my father would. All this struggling, all his desperate attempts to get out, to free himself from the reins and the cell or the control the vervain was imposing on him-that was ruining him.

I have no idea how I found it in me to cut out his leg, then his stomach, then his head and not flinch or cry. At first, my father was observing me and he actually made my choice easier-I couldn't fight his orders. I had to follow them so I dug deeper and deeper and watched the vampire's blood spill out.

But then he had to leave. One of the hunters called him out, claiming they found something different this time and he ordered me to keep going and be done by the time he was back.

I looked at Stefan-the vervain was making him delusional. He would scream out his brother's name or that girl Katherine's one and he would drown in sweat and painful dreams-and that, that was somehow better than him waking up and looking at me with utter disappointment.

I couldn't stand his painful grunts. He would never scream. No matter how much pain I caused him, he wouldn't scream.

But, God, his look-I could see the sea of pain and desperation in his beautiful green eyes and for a moment I envied him for he could get lost in his own dreams while I had to go through this.

I wasn't as strong as him, though. I was barely holding myself together-this suddenly overwhelmed me. I realized that after today, I will never be the same girl and in ways, it broke me but it also left me speechless.

He never begged me to ease his pain or stop, but he would often wake up-he was in this strange place where reality and dreams got mixed and he wasn't sure what was going on. The only thing he was certain of was the pain I was causing him.

I wasn't as strong as him though, I couldn't watch him in pain, so I gave him two more shots of vervain behind my father's back, hoping that I won't be killing him with such a dosage in his body.

When I was done and my father came back to approve my work, Stefan was completely unconscious. He wasn't tossing or turning, he wasn't talking in his sleep-he looked almost dead, but somehow, even though we've tried our best to destroy him as much as we could today, he was still here.

The hunters emotionlessly took him back to his cell and I couldn't wait to get rid of my father's happy look and run to my room, so I could clean all of Stefan's blood from my body.

I wanted to cry when I was finally alone. I wanted to let it all out, but surprisingly, I couldn't do so. I wished for it so bad, yet I couldn't-all I could see in front of me was Stefan's tortured face and his blood on my hands. I just couldn't get rid of this picture in my head, no matter what. I tried distracting myself-I went out with Caroline, we even got to the movies, but I wasn't myself and I think she noticed it. I remembered all the times he called his brother's name out, all the times he was desperately searching for someone to just help him and every time I closed my eyes, I could see his green ocean of sadness staring at me. And every time I covered my ears, I could hear him saying my name out loud, wondering what the hell is wrong with me.

And he wasn't the only one.

Eventually late after midnight, after I couldn't catch any sleep, I threw on some clothes and went downstairs to the cells. I found Matt sleeping on the chair near the locker rooms-fortunately, he didn't hear me as I slowly opened the door leading to the locked vampires and let myself in.

I walked to his cell with trembling feet. It was the last one on the left and when I finally made it there and looked inside, I saw him lying in his cot, his back to mine. He slightly shifted as he felt another person's presence there and I swallowed hard before speaking up.

"Stefan?" I asked, but he didn't even flinch this time. I could see the wounds on his body, this time-I was the one causing them. The cot was soaked with his blood, I could see the puddle formed under it. It also smelled terrible "Stefan, please, come here" I asked him. I didn't have keys this time, I couldn't get to them, so I had to try and help him from out here

"What do you want, little princess?" he asked tiredly, his voice barely audible "If you've come to get some extra credit for hurting me in your free time, I suggest you leave."

"Stefan, come here, please" I begged again and this time he finally moved. I saw him slowly turning back and sitting in the cot and even that little action exhausted him.

Once he looked at me, however, I realized what a monster I've become today. He didn't resemble a vampire anymore. He didn't look like anything at all-he was bloody, bruised, full of dirty wounds-he was a mess.

"I've brought you blood, it will help you heal." I said trying to bring him closer to me.

"You mean close the nasty wounds you gave me today?" he wasn't going to make this easier for me and I swallowed hard as I watched him stand up and stagger on his way to me. He couldn't make it, though. He soon fell on his knees and let a desperate laugh out. "Why are you here, Elena?" he asks next as he looks at me and raises himself on his strong arms. "Wasn't what happened today enough for you that you want to keep humiliating me now?"

"I'm not humiliating you, asshole. I'm here to help you!" I huff through teeth and get out the blood vial I've stolen for him as well as some gauzes and bandages and a clean white shirt.

As soon as he sees the blood, his eyes flicker with hope of salvation, but then his look falls on me and his face hardens. He slowly craws to the bars and leans on them, which makes me sigh out relieved. I shove my hand between the bars and try not to crinkle my nose form the awful smell coming from him and his open wounds. I hand him the vial and he stares at it for a moment before grabbing it in his hand

"No" he says and I give him a confused look. I expected that he'll drink it right away "You didn't come here for me. You came here for yourself." he sees right through me and before I know it, he tosses the vial through the bars and I hear it crash on the wall somewhere behind me"And I ain't consoling your guilty soul, little princess. You enjoyed what you did today and you're too afraid to admit it, but I know it" he grunts from the pain in his chest and his rough palm ends up on one of the wounds for a brief moment before he continues

"I saw it in your eyes. You're here now, because you can't swallow down that realization. Not yet. And it's killing you inside."

"Shut up!" I cut him off a bit too harsh, but he just laughs in my face as he leans on the bars, his back to me, but his face half-turned so he could look me in the eye sI told you, I didn't have a choice."

"Of course you did" he argued with a faint smile "You were given the opportunity to see what you'll become before you've taken the step you did today. I never knew what a vampire could do before I turned, while you saw all those people working here, causing pain on others, justifying it for some great cause and you took the wrong way anyway. Let me tell you something, little princess-there is no great cause. You're all fighting for nothing."

"You're wrong!" I stubbornly disagreed and he shrugged his shoulders with a sigh. "We're doing this to help people, to find cures, to save them!"

"Yet you had as much blood on your hands today as I do when I kill someone." he concluded with his hoarse voice "You want so much to convince yourself that I am the bad guy here, but can't you see, little princess" he asks as he turns to me, the left part of his face is bloody from the wound he has on his head, the one I made today

"We are the same." he smiles one last time, before he steadies himself on his hands and tries moving back to his cot. I grab his arm and push him back though-he was so weak, I almost hurt him more instead of doing something for him

"Wait!" I gasp "Let me help you!" I say, but he shakes his head

"I don't need your help, little princess" he mumbles, but he's exhausted and I know he's barely keeping himself awake, but I push him back to the bars once again

" _Let me help you!"_ I say the words slowly and he doesn't have the strength to fight me back, so he just leans back on the bars and with trembling hands, I try cleaning his wounds and bandaging them up. He gives me a hand when he can, but he's useless. His hands can't hold on to anything I give him and I curse him for not taking the blood I brought.

"Do you know what's the hardest thing to earn after you've crossed the line?" he asks as I am almost done cleaning his wounds and passing a shirt that I found in my brother's closet for him through the bars "Forgiveness" he says with a smile and he tries putting the shirt on, but he's so weak, that I try to do as much as I can to give him a hand with that too. My eyes water at his words-I realize that he's right, I've lost myself, but I also wondered how he knew so much about this.

Unless he's been where I am.

I push away from the cell, but his hand grabs my wrist and he pulls me back, closer to him. The only thing separating our faces, is the bars, I am so close to him, I can hear his shallow breathing as he can hear my fast beating heart.

He takes my hand in his and squeezes it. He doesn't speak up. He doesn't say a single word-his face is hard and serious, but his eyes are warm and I'm wondering how come a monster like him, carries a soul like this.

He finally lets me go and turns his back to me, lying on the cold hard floor and slowly drifting away. I observe him until I'm sure he's asleep and I stare there, wondering, how come the one I hurt most today, has found it in himself to grant me his compassion and try to console me.

He was right-he was not the monster.

I was.

* * *

 **A/N: I'm sorry for not updating faster. I literally have no time to sleep, I'm swamped with college stuff and my life is a mess. I also didn't really think that many people are reading this story, so I wasn't in a rush to start writing. There was someone who left a review that they want Delena after the last update-I hope you understand that this is a Stelena story, so there is literally no Delena here. Also, some of you left me PMs and well...Elena is like a college student, Stefan can't be her first kiss, since she was kissed before too, she's not a teenager. Thank you for all your reviews and your support!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Stefan's POV**

I am resting pressed to the bars of my lovely cell when I hear the heavy metal door open on the other side. I suppose that it's late in the evening and that it must be the hunters, because they've already given us our dinner-a small blood dosage and most of the vampires were sleeping, but not me. The wounds Elena gave me two days ago were still healing and I had a hard time getting enough rest. Most of the time I would lie in my bloody cot and think about her or my brother or just about everything that's been going on, realizing that it might as well be one of the most awful things in my life.

I dreamt of Damon finding me, but I knew well enough that my brother won't show any interest in my location, surely not now. He might not even be in the states. I remember he told me he plans to travel back to Europe. He missed the cheap booze and who was I to argue with him.

I wish I could join him, I wish I could see him and ask him for forgiveness. I wish I had a chance to make things right or at least explain that I might never see him again. I wish I could call him so I could hear his voice once more, because I knew far too well by now that I wasn't getting out of here. Not alive.

I tense as I hear them approach my cell. The one opposite of mine was empty and I guessed they would put the new vampire in there. My hand instinctively goes to the wound on my right side when Elena dug her scalpel and I wince. It still refused to heal. Even though they haven't tortured me for more than a day and they gave me blood twice. I guess I was just too weak right now.

My thoughts brought me back to Elena. I haven't seen her ever since she came by my cell after she tortured me and even though I wanted to be mad at her, the truth is that I missed her. Maybe her not coming down here meant that she doesn't care that much about me, that she decided to revel in her new found hobby and torture other vampires, or maybe she avoided me because I've told her the truth about herself and she had no idea what to do right now.

"The last one is free, guys" I jump when I hear her voice and I suddenly realize that the steps coming towards me are way more than I initially thought "Right, dad?" she asks and I hear her father's voice responding in confirmation. I grip the bars and try raising myself up, but it's useless. The only thing I manage to do is end up on my knees and rest my dirty head on the bars. I will see her now. She'll appear right before me and I'll see her.

The thought makes me want to laugh. How insane am I? This girl tortured me! She took out my insides and played with them and here I was hopelessly waiting for her to appear from. Why? I should be hating her. What is wrong with me?

I hear someone struggling as they pull them down the hallway and I assume it's the vampire they must've caught. I don't care about them though, I am too tired to feel sorry for anyone, I am constantly in pain and that blurs my judgement.

Maybe that's why I am so confused when it comes to Elena-I am just not myself anymore. They didn't only ruin my body, they also fucked up my mind-Elena wasn't the only one who was losing themselves. I was barely the person that I was before I came here. I was losing my humanity and I haven't even turned it off. Not yet at least.

But fate has other plans for me and just as I see the figures approaching my cell and try to catch a glimpse of Elena, I realize that the vampire they're pushing forward is someone I know.

My breath gets stuck in my throat and I let go of the bars that I'm holding so tight up until now. I know this man, it's been years, but I can recognize him anywhere. He looks a lot like my brother, though he's shorter, he has the same black raven hair and his eyes are blue, but that piercing cold blue that makes your insides squirm.

Last time I saw him, he wanted to kill me, because I've just ended up the life of the person that he loved so dearly. I've met him once in the 50s again and I left town before he could notice me. I hoped that he would never turn to me, but of course, he did and when he saw my face he stopped walking abruptly and his eyes went wide. The hunters supporting him from both sides furrowed their eyebrows angrily and Elena and her father came from behind them, wondering what was wrong.

"Noah" I gasped as I met his look while he clenched his jaw and gave me his devilish smile. He was dangerous and the fact that I've outsmarted him once, didn't mean I will ever succeed in it again. I've pissed him off a long time ago and my hopes of him forgetting all about it obviously would remain unanswered.

"Well, well, well, isn't that the Ripper of Monterrey!" he said with a hoarse voice. They've hurt him just like me when they first brought me here. He seemed a bit drunk from the vervain and there was a hole in his chest from what must've been a stake once "Fancy meeting you here after all these years!"

"Noah" I say his name again as I try to keep my voice steady "It's been a while"

"What the hell is going on here?" Elena's father intervenes but we don't pay attention to him at all, the hunters seem mesmerized by our encounter and Elena is more confused than ever. I'm avoiding her look, I can't do this with her now

"Right" the vampire grows "The last time we saw each other has been so pleasant. Especially the part where you killed the love of my life" he raises his voice and grows, showing me his teeth. The guards are obviously not holding him tight, because he escapes their grip and speeds to my cell, staring at me angrily. "I missed the opportunity to kill you once, I won't do it again!" he threatens as he shoves his hand between the bars and grabs the collar of my shirt. I do the same and try to push him away, but unsuccessfully, he's stronger than me, he still hasn't been through hell and he doesn't have open wounds all over his body.

Everything happens too fast-it's a mess around us. The other vampires wake and start shaking their bars, yelling and cheering, trying to see what's going on and who's trying to kill who-they are hungry for the excitement. The hunters are beating Noah's back with their wooden clubs and I manage to see Elena being pulled back by her father, who's yelling at the guards to calm us down and separate us.

"You will die, Ripper! YOU WILL DIE!" Noah yells in my face and I try to tighten my grip around his hand and push it away from me but it's hard to do so between the bars "Even if it's the last thing I do on this earth!"

"Let me go!" I growl at him as I try to push away, but his hands are holding me pretty tight and I can't move away.

"Tear them apart for god's sake!" I hear Gilbert yell at the hunters who have been trying to separate us for a few minutes now. Finally they grab his hands and pull him away from me, but he's still yelling, promising that he'll kill me for what I did

"He's a Ripper! You don't know him, he's a ripper! He wiped out an entire village in the 20s! He killed my girlfriend too! He killed her without blinking his eye!"

"I did it because she almost killed my brother!" I yelled back at him as I grabbed the bars myself, trying to get to him now. I was angry, because I was right-his loved one almost ripped Damon's heart out after she drove a stake through my stomach. I've barely made it in time. She could've taken my brother away and in order to prevent that I ripped her heart out and yes, I didn't think twice. And I don't regret it. "She was feeding off other vampires!"

"She was making the world a better place by getting rid of rippers like you! She couldn't kill you, but I will!" he kept trying to free himself from the hunters and I kept trying to get away from the cell-I wanted to kill him too, the memory of the day I almost lost Damon lit up the anger inside me and made me burn with resentment towards Noah.

"Hey, hey, calm down! Calm down!" Gilbert yelled at him and stared back between me and Noah. I was afraid to look at Elena, but I finally did and besides all the confusion I saw in her eyes, I recognized anger and resentment towards me too.

She hated my guts and she was right to feel like that. Even though Noah was provoking me, he was also right about something else-I was a Ripper, I've killed all those people, I've caused pain and left destruction whenever I went.

"We gotta separate them, they'll keep trying to get to each other and will make the rest of them restless" one of the hunters said and I almost don't register his words, because I'm too focused on staring back angrily at Noah who was still showing me his long teeth. If he was anything like his loved one and fed off vampires like her, then he would surely love to dig his teeth in my neck and give me the death I truly deserve.

"I have a better idea" Gilbert says and I see Elena approaching him curiously, yet still cautiously. I guess our little encounter scared her, but was she ever worried about me? Or was she still disgusted by the fact that I was a cold-blood killer. "Why don't we let them fight and see who wins? This way we'll solve our problems and I can decide who I can use for my experiments tomorrow." he suggests

"No" Elena surprisingly raises her voice and all eyes go on her "Dad, do you think it's wise, I mean-" she tries to justify her words, but the way she's looking at me, I can see what's really going on-she's worried about me. She actually manages to find it in her to feel bad about me, even though she just realized that I'm not only a vampire, but a real monster, who killed thousands of people and that actually amuses me.

"Open his cell" her father doesn't even let her finish the sentence "Elena, what's wrong with you? That could be interesting, it can help us learn more about them, about the way they function!" he scolds her with a serious and cold voice and she sheepishly takes a step back as she tries to hide her embarrassment from the hunters

"I just think that it will be unfair, considering the fact that this one is barely standing on his feet" she nods to me with a certain kind of resentment and I can't say if she's faking it or really can't stand looking at me right now.

"It won't be. It will only make it better." her father, who I seriously think is sick if he thinks that watching two monsters trying to kill each other is interesting, says and I see the hunters open up my cell and start pulling me out.

Elena is right, though, I can't even stand on my own feet. I am still limping from the wound she opened in my knee and I stagger all the time, my body is a mess and I am weak. I wouldn't stand five minutes in a fight, which however didn't mean I was giving up-I just had to try and finish this off faster. Noah was already in the other cell and he was impatiently waiting for them to open it up and throw me inside so he can get his revenge.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to think of what Damon would tell me if he was here. I remember the time we were both soldiers and try recalling all his words and advices.

I remember him telling me to always play weak at first, to hide between the bushes, to pretend as if I'm an easy target or even play dead and then when the enemy approaches me and thinks that this is it and they've won, I should pick my gun and fire, letting all my anger out. He used to say that we will always be angry during wartime, there was no other way, but we had to contain this anger, to keep it up and pile it patently in ourselves so we can use it in the right moment. He said I shouldn't cry when my comrades die on the field, that I should never shed a tear if he dies too, he said I have to keep it up and let all the grief inside me at once-that was the only way to free myself from it. He said that crying a little every day will only turn me into a weak person and will destroy me and make me an easy target. Cry once in a month, but cry good, he would say, then pick yourself up the next morning and hold your head up.

So when they let me in the cage and untie my hands I am not afraid. Really, I could die right now and I know I will deserve it. But I am a Salvatore and I wouldn't go down without a fight. That would mean betraying my brother and I loved him too much to do that. I had to fight as best as I could even if I was so weak, I had to be smart, I had to listen to the words he told me all those years ago when we were both nothing but children.

The hunters glue themselves to the cell, happy with the entertainment they'll get. Gilbert is standing close to the door, as if he would burst in and check on the winner right after they give their final hit and Elena…I look at her one last time before I realize that Noah is already trying to strike and I can't read her this time. Her hands are crossed on her chest and she's shifting nervously next to the cell, but I have no idea what's going on her mind or if she'll ever talk to me after this is over and if I get out of it alive.

I don't have time to wonder, though. Noah pushes me hard and my back hits the wall. He doesn't waste any time and starts hitting my face right away, not giving me the opportunity to even defend myself. I try to duck, but he's faster and stronger and he kicks me in the stomach, which almost makes me fall after a minute of a pretty pathetic fight.

With whatever strength I am left with, I try to pretend to fight back, hoping that this way, I'll make him tired and that will give me the opportunity to strike in the right moment. That goes on for a while, I don't know how much, but I'm growing more tired by the minute and I surely am making no progress here.

Even if he has vervain in his system, he's still in a better shape than me, he probably fed soon and he pushes me around without thinking twice. The last straw is when he tosses me at the wall and my head cracks open. It's the exactly same wound Elena patched up the day before she tortured me. I guess it still hasn't healed completely, because it starts bleeding fast and I get dizzy right away.

"I…will…end you" Noah grunts at me as he grabs my shoulder, pulls me to him and starts hitting my ribs "And then, I'll find your brother and I'll laugh as I tell him that you're death, I'll" I can't listen to him anymore, I'm tired of his games, this is too much for me, involving my brother.

I finally fight back as I should and push him back to the opposite wall, rushing by his side and hitting his face, which is exactly what he wanted me to do. I can hear the hunters cheering and the other vampires yelling from their cells, this was a once in a lifetime entertainment for all of them. I am too weak to keep pressuring Noah, though, he kicks my bad knee and I end up falling, which is exactly what he needs to get to the bottom of this. He rushes behind me, grabs me by the neck, raises me up and whispers in my ear

"You are a ripper. You've killed thousands of people and now I'll take your life away like you take theirs-I'll drain you of your blood" before I could say anything, he digs his fangs in my neck and starts drinking from me.

I close my eyes and hear all of them who are watching cheering up, yelling, saying things that don't even matter right now and in the midst of all this I hear her.

I hear her high pitch gasp and I sense her covering her mouth with her bony hands that dug in my body only a day ago and tortured me. Then she rushes to the bars and grabs them. I hear her yell out my name and I want to smile, but the pain is too much.

I try to think of a way out, but I only feel myself getting weaker. Noah is drinking my blood away and I am pretty sure I would've fallen to my knees if he wasn't gripping me that tight. Millions of moments flash before my eyes-from Damon and me playing in the backyard, to our father beating us for getting ourselves dirty before Christmas dinner, to Katherine and I making love in my room, then her being taken away, a rifle pointed at my chest and a bullet hitting me and then me waking up as a vampire. I feel really bad with every passing moment, with every scene changing before me and I know that I'm dying and there's no one who can help me.

For a moment, I think that this is for the better. Noah appearing here today might've been a blessing in disguise. God knows what the Gilberts were going to do to me. They will surely continue torturing me and if Grayson finds me as interesting than that means he won't just let me be. And this kind of living wasn't actually living-it was torture and I wasn't as strong as I thought I was. I knew, I felt that I would soon break and then things would only get worse from there.

I am about to completely give up when I see Damon's face in front of me. He's dressed in his Confederacy uniform and he's leaning on a tree, his rifle casually thrown on his arm, he's smoking a cigarette he's just made himself.

"Really, Stefan? You're giving up now?" he says as he lets off the smoke and shakes his head "That's a shame. You survived so much torture and you're going to let some stupid vampire drink away your blood? I never expected this of you" he continues seriously "Are you done feeling sorry for yourself? he asks then as he takes off his rifle and starts walking to me "Better kick some ass like I taught you, brother!" he says and I finally come back to my senses.

I grab Noah's hand, the one that's holding me and I tear it away. He is so surprised that he stops feeding and that gives me the opportunity to pull away from him, even though his teeth are still deep sunken in my neck and the experience is very painful.

Before he knows what's going on, I rush with my last strength behind him and I shove my hand deep in his chest, grabbing his heart

"You went after me and my brother and for that you'll die" I squeeze it and he yells in my hands. This time the roles are reversed and I'm the one who can kill him with just one simple pull. But I never get the chance to do this, because Grayson intervenes and yells in my direction

"Let him go!" he says. It's obvious that he's short on vampires and he doesn't want to lose another precious monster he can torture and experiment on "Right now!" he continues when I don't let Noah go right away.

The hunters are already inside the cell, pointing their guns full of wooden bullets at me, but I don't do as they say right away. Instead, I turn left and look at Elena, who's still gripping the bars. I see the tears in her eyes, even though she's trying to get herself together by now and I hope that her father hasn't noticed anything strange in her behavior. I look back at the barely breathing Noah in my hands and take another moment before I let him go and watch him fall on the ground helplessly. Soon after I follow, staggering and ending up on my knees.

"Elena, take care of him!" her father yells as he leans down to Noah and grabs his hair, pulling it up and looking carefully at his fangs which are still out.

Elena hurries to get back in as well and she doesn't wait for another invitation from her father. The yells and the noise surrounding us is already dying out, the vampires are still curiously peaking from their cells, but they are no longer cheering up or shaking their cages, they are just staring, trying to figure out what happened. Elena grabs my arm and throws it over her shoulders, pulling me up and helping me get out, though I'm basically unable to stand on my feet, because I lost too much blood, I'm trying to hold on because of her. The hunters are already gone, Gilbert sent them away to bring him some stuff back to the cell and then told them they'll be free for the rest of the evening, so it was just me and Elena walking down the hallway.

Somehow with much effort we make it to one of the rooms where her father usually tortured vampires and I was about to fall back just when she was helping me get on the bed.

She didn't let me lie down, though, she made me sit and lean on the wall while I was groaning from pain. I could still feel Noah's fangs dug in my neck and the wound hurt like nothing else. With my eyes barely opened I saw her rushing to what seemed a fridge and open it frantically. She grabbed a small bottle full of blood and rushed back by my side.

"Elena…" I gasped, but her eyebrows were furrowed and I couldn't understand what was going through her mind right now "Elena" I tried calling her out again as I watched her unscrew the bottle and bring it to my lips. I moved my head away with last strength "No, it's human" I tried protesting, but she wouldn't have it.

She put her hand at the back of my neck and pushed the bottle in my mouth, making me take in a few sips at first. I tried getting rid of her, pushing her away, but her grip was tight and I was too weak. She was feeding me like a child refusing to eat his dinner, but she was persistent and she wouldn't let me go until the bottle was done.

I immediately felt the blood rushing through my veins and felt the wounds starting to heal. But even a whole bottle wasn't enough for them to close and that made her even angrier than before. I knew what was going on-she was focusing on something else instead of dealing with everything she heard back in the cell and who could blame her.

"You have too much vervain in your system, that's why you can't heal completely" she said as she grabbed a bandage from the metal table next to us and hurried to press it to my neck wound which was still the only one bleeding as much. The one on my head has almost healed and overall I felt a lot better.

"Elena" I tried again

"No!" she shook her head and I smiled sadly

"You should ask" I say patiently as I feel her tiny fingers moving gently around my wound "I know you want to"

"No!" she says stubbornly again, refusing to face reality. She might be a young naïve child in people's eyes, but I knew better. She was smart and right now she was not only surprised-she was hurt. She hated me for criticizing her about causing pain on others when I've taken so many lives away. She probably thought I was different, but I turned out to be nothing but a pretentious asshole.

"He was telling the truth, you know" I decide to speak because she won't. I prefer to be honest with her, to let her see me for who I am. And I wasn't sure what it was inside me that made me push the subject forward. Or maybe I didn't want to realize it yet. "I am a Ripper. I've taken many lives. I wiped out an entire village in the 1920s. I am the worst kind of vampire. Blood controls me and I can never make myself stop" I continue explaining and her touch gets sloppy, slowly, yet she still refuses to look at me, her eyes are fixed on my wound

"And when I turn it off, it only gets worse. Do you know what that means?' she doesn't respond, she doesn't react in any way to my words, but I know she's listening, she's just trying very hard not to break down in front of me "I can switch off all my emotions. It's like a button you press and it's all gone-the pain, the guilt, the fear, everything that burdens you." she continues cleaning away the blood from my wound, but I feel that she can't stop it. Noah's teeth dug too deep and so she decides to apply pressure on it instead of wiping it away, but that only makes it worse for her because it means she has to look at me, yet she doesn't want to

"It took me years to come back to myself. I've driven everyone away, even my brother gave up on trying to save me, because in reality, how can you do any of it? How do you fix a monster?" I say as if to myself, but the question is directed to her.

I finally get angry, so I grab her wrist and make her look at me. Her eyes are full of tears, she's angry, she wants to kick and yell, but she's also breaking down and the reason for it is me.

"Because Elena" I say with a sad smile "I am a monster. Of the worst kind. You were right all along about me."

"How could you!" she whispers angrily in my face and I finally see her letting it all out for the first time "How could you say all those awful things to me when you knew you weren't better! My father was right all along about you-vampires are manipulative creatures. All you care about is draining someone's blood and leaving them lifeless on the ground."

"That's true. I wasn't fair to you. But you can't say that what you're doing here is any better than what we do out there. You too want to drain us of our blood. You too, are killing us. And you're thinking you're better because you're justifying your actions, saying that it's all for the greater good, but we both know it's not." she shakes her head, but doesn't pull away from me

"You are as monsterous as we are and we are as human as you are. " we stare at each other for a while. She's starting too cool off, I can feel it. She is actually listening to me this time, she lets my words sink in and she realizes that I'm right. "Otherwise why would you come by my cell after you tortured me the other day?" I ask her and she swallows hard as she avoids my look for a moment.

But I don't let her wonder on it for too long. I don't even let myself process everything that happened tonight. I don't control my actions at this moment and when I lean closer to her, and when I boldly press my lips to hers, I don't think, I can't for I know it will only make everything more complicated.

She's surprised at first. She even battles with herself, wonders if she should pull back, stop it, but she doesn't. She can't. Maybe it's the same force driving her that pushed me to do this in the first place, maybe she is not capable of stopping it either. It doesn't matter.

What does, is that she responds and soon her sweet lips touch mine with a certain passion that I haven't felt in ages, our tongues intertwine and I put my hand at the back of her neck, pushing her closer to me, letting her taste all of me, showing her what I am and what I carry in my heart.

And then she pushes away-abrutply she separates from me and gives me a fearful look.

"This isn't right" she says fast, she is suddenly processing it all "I shouldn't be doing this." I smile as I slide my hand to her cheek and caress her lips with my rough thumb. Then our foreheads touch and she closes her eyes, I can hear her fast heartbeat, I can feel the battle within her.

"Yet it feels right, doesn't it?" I whisper and I lean down to kiss her once again "Open up your heart, Elena." I soothe her "From the two of us, you are the one holding my life in your hands, not the other way around. I already gave you everything I have. Now it's your turn."

And she kisses back.

Ignoring all the battles that her heart and mind lead in the moment.

She opens up.

* * *

 **A/N: I'm sorry that I took longer to update, but I've been really busy with college and I was also sick. I am not in a rush to update this story, because I'm trying to finish my Defan fanfiction and because not as many people actually read this one, so I don't really appreacite the angry reviews that some of you post on my other story. I'm doing my best to write when I have free time, which is harder these days and you leaving me reviews, cursing me and asking me to write sex scenes won't motivate me to finish a chapter any faster, if anything it ony makes me not write. I move my stories with my own pace and I develop the relationship maybe slowlier than what you expect. If any of you do not enjoy the story or the way I write and update it, you are free not to read. To the rest of you-thank you for reading and supporting me!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Stefan's POV**

The next day after Elena and I kissed, they move me to a separate cell. I am trying to fight them, wondering what this all must be about. Surely, it can't be good. Separating me from the rest of them meant they were either going to experiment differently on me or they wanted to finish me off and let me die.

Either way, I strongly disliked it and they left me without food for whole two days in which I was going out of my freaking mind. Nobody visited me, nobody came to take me to Gilbert's examination room, nobody gave me blood, nobody made anything at all and I started wondering if this has something to do with Elena.

Maybe her father figured out what we've done. Maybe he realized that she gave me a whole bottle full of blood when she wasn't supposed to give me more than a few sips. Thanks to her, I've healed and I was not in any pain, except the dull throb in my stomach caused by the hunger, to which I was used by now. I wasn't even thinking about how hungry I actually am, I was wondering what the hell was going on with her and I was so worried that they might've punished her if they've found out that she kissed me. We've been very careful that evening, I think it's close to impossible that anyone knew, because her father left shortly after she took me to his room to patch me up and the hunters were long gone.

Or maybe this had nothing to do with anyone else. Maybe it was all her. She might've realized that she made a mistake and that she doesn't want to have anything to do with me.

I was trying to push away this option at the back of my mind, even though technically it was a very possible one. The more I thought about it, the more I was convincing myself that I was right-why would she want to kiss a 100 year old ripper, who has wiped out an entire village? I laughed to myself. Who was I deluding? Even my brother didn't want to look me in the eyes. He hated my guts, for I was the reason he turned and made him wander this earth alone and without his loved one. I didn't deserve a single person out there caring for me.

I have no idea how much time has passed when the door finally opens and three people walk in-first there are the hunters and the moment I see them, I push back to the wall, realizing that I've turned into a coward if I was so scared they would hurt me. They both grab my arms and push me to the cold wall, after giving me a few kicks in the stomach to keep me down.

Then there she comes in, following slowly after them, holding her medical bag full of supplies, or maybe it was her father's I didn't know and refusing to look me in the eyes. Her name almost slips through my lips, before I realize that I can't afford doing that, since the hunters are here and they'll realize something's going on between us, so I keep my mouth shut and observe her carefully.

Something is different about her-her face is pale and there are dark circles under her eyes-she probably hasn't slept at all these past few days just like me. And for the first time in forever, it wasn't pain keeping me awake-it was the thought of her and what must be going on. She doesn't even glance at me, she is refusing to and that's how I know things are terribly wrong. Something here is messed up, she is either scared and she can't look at me out of safety precautions or she hates my guts and can't stand look at my face.

"Can you guys tie him up, this will take me some time" she asks completely indifferent and cold towards me. The guards nod and bring my hands up above my head, tying them in a tight knot and straightening it on one of the bars.

"You'll be fine by yourself?" one of them asks and she nods "He can be unpredictable sometimes so if he gives you trouble, shout and we'll come"

"I'll be fine, I know this one good" she reassures them and waits till they leave and lock the door behind them. This cell is nothing like the old ones, it was more of a room with a heavy metal door with a very small window on and another one build in very high with three bars, where my hands were tied right now, looking at the forest obviously. But I wasn't about to think of the view I've been given since they brought me here.

"Elena" I try calling her out but she raises her hand, telling me to shut up and listens carefully as she waits patiently for the guard's steps to die out in another hallway. Then she turns to me and drops her bag on the floor "Elena, what's going on?" I ask confused and she finally kneels down next to me as she opens her bag and starts taking out injections and tine bottles full of strange liquids.

They scare me-I've developed this fear for someone pushing things in my arms or cutting through my flesh ever since they brought me here and I was sure they would never go away. What startles me most, however is her behavior, she is avoiding my look even now, and the way she is moving her hands and sighing every now and again show me that she's angry.

"Elena!" I beg again "Will you look at me!" I raise my voice angry myself and she finally stop doing whatever it is that she's doing and looks up. Her eyebrows are furrowed and she drops the things she's holding, only so she could sit down and cross her legs

"What do you want from me, vampire?" she asks instead and my eyes go wide with confusion

"Okay, I guess that means that whatever we did last time is now being ignored and forgotten" I chuckle lightly, realizing that I'm not surprised at all.

She had her doubts back then when I kissed her and even when I thought I've brought her walls down, I was doing no such thing-this is the daughter of a vampire torturer, what did I actually expect from her? She must be taught to hate my kind ever since she could talk, so why was I so stupid to delude myself into thinking there will be more to this. Moreover, I was not a regular vampire…and I guess she spent the past few days thinking carefully over everything Noah said while we were fighting.

"You guessed right" she responds silently and looks away again, refusing to face me and all the questions that I have. She swallows hard and I guess that she has something to tell me, so I wait patiently for her to collect her thoughts "Look, Salvatore" oh, so now I'm Salvatore, that's all fine "I don't know what you're thinking, but last time…" she takes a deep breath "It was a mistake. One that I will never repeat again. You used your charms on me, you might've even compelled me, I am not certain, because I forgot to drink my vervain that day, so I'm sure as hell that it wasn't real." her statement makes me laugh

"Well, that was a good one, I'll give it to you" I smile and shake my head as she finally looks at me "Elena, I was barely walking, I was bleeding, I had a big wound on my head and a gash on my neck which still hasn't healed completely even after you fed me, so do you really think I was in any condition to compel you?"

"I don't know. You were given human blood. That surely makes you stronger than usual and I was too big of a fool to give you an entire bottle."

"You are living in a nice lie, little princess. Or you're just too good in ignoring your real feelings. Either way, I know the truth, despite you calling me out to be a liar and using my compulsion on you-you kissed me because you wanted to and you just can't live with yourself now, so you're willing to blame everything on me." I state without hesitation and my words obviously anger her "But it's fine, whatever suits your perfect world" I shrug my shoulders as far as the ropes allow me. She keeps her facial expression cold and harsh and I see her clenching her fists

"You can think whatever you want. But here's the truth, Stefan" this time she uses my first name and for a moment I catch a glimpse of the old her "You are not only a vampire, you are also a ripper. I did my research and found everything there is about you in our family library. If my father even knew who you were, he would've probably killed you by now. You wiped out entire villages, you went from town to town and killed mercilessly, you took their heads off and then tried to put the pieces back together-you don't deserve anyone's love after that." her words dig up a hole in my chest and I completely let my guard down.

She was right, and she spoke up my thoughts, the exact same ones I've been having for years. I didn't deserve my brother's love and I surely couldn't expect her to see beyond the awful things I've done. I was a monster and a monster doesn't deserve to be loved

"I am glad we caught you, because you surely shouldn't be out there, taking any more innocent lives."

"I haven't fed off people in more than thirty years" I interrupt her, but I'm not arguing with her, I'm merely stating a fact, hoping that she can find the good inside me, see that it isn't completely lost, or actually, I want her to see it, so that I will believe that it's there too

"Maybe. But one day we both know you'll snap and go back to the monster you are. And probably this time, even more people will die" she slightly moves up and starts taking out more things from her bag, laying them out on the floor and getting concentrated to do her job "And I can't let that happen" I listen to her carefully and I realize that I'm not angry at her. Not at all. Why would I be? After all she's only stating the truth.

I've thought about killing myself on few occasions and if it wasn't for Lexi to stop me I probably would've gone through with it. I realize now that she should've just let me be. She could've done what Elena was doing now-she could've saved innocents. I didn't deserve forgiveness. I didn't deserve people pitying me and trying to believe in the good in me. There was no good. There was nothing but a shell of the boy who loved to strongly everything around him, more than a century ago.

"You are right" I agree with her and she gives me a surprised look. Obviously those weren't the words she expected to hear from a cold-blooded killer. I ignore her look and stare down at her hands which are holding a pretty big syringe full of some strange green-yellow liquid.

"What is this? Why did they move me here?" I ask her and she sighs as she cleans away the blood from my arm with a cotton swab, preparing to stick the needle in me.

"You're part of an experiment" she states, again refusing to look me in the eyes "My father is trying out some viruses that he developed, on vampires."

"What kind of viruses?" I ask again and she takes a minute before she responds still digging for stuff in her bag

"He caught a werewolf about a month ago" she explains and this time looks me in the eyes. A werewolf…that can't be good. They were poisonous to us. Their bite could end our life in less than a few days" Do you know how special the werewolf venom is? she asks and I shake my head

"I know that it can kill us."

"True. But it can be very helpful for people who are suffering from certain diseases, even in cancer for some early stages." I furrow my eyebrows, not getting where she's going with this. If the venom had healing powers like our blood did, then why can't he just use it on people and heal them? "However, it turned out that it is too strong and after it heals the said patient, he remains in a perfect physical condition but after a while starts losing his mind-they get impatient, has random bursts out and pick up fights. They basically go insane."

"And your father is trying to fix the flaw in his medicine by using vampires?" I guess and she nods, appreciating the fact that she didn't have to explain it to me

He believes that if only one vampire manages to fight a small dosage of the werewolf venom in his system, which we inject in them with along with combination of other ingredients" she raises up the syringe which surely she will dig into my arm "Then he can draw out the perfect medicine from their blood."

"But I'm guessing he hasn't been successful until now?" I ask and she shakes her head "So there's a great chance that after you put this thing in me, I'm going to die, right?" I say it calmly and I actually am not even slightly disturbed by this piece of information right now

"I'll come here for three days in a roll and give you a shot. You'll get the venom in small amounts in your system, we don't want to rush it and well…"

"Kill me in a day's time, right?" I laugh and lean my head back to the cold wall

"My father believes you're strong enough to actually pull this off, which is why he chose you. After the fight the other day when you almost ripped Noah's head off, even in the awful condition you were in, he figured you'll be the perfect test subject" she explains lowering her voice with every other word

I take a minute to think over this myself. I know well enough that this is it-there is no way out of here and even if Gilbert thought I'm strong enough, I know that he's wrong. The thing with Noah the other day was a spur of adrenaline. I wasn't lying to Elena when I told her that I haven't fed off humans in more than thirty years. I was weak and the only thing keeping me up was my will to maybe get out of here. But now that was obviously not happening and I had to accept that there was no one who would help me.

"And since you are not the best optimist just like me, Gilbert" I call her out after taking a moment to think of this myself and let her finish of preparing her things "How about you tell me how long will I have after you inject those things in me?" she swallows hard and avoids my look again.

I wonder if she actually feels something towards me or if it was all a lie. Maybe she just wanted to try what it's like to kiss a vampire, maybe she is the one who's been playing me all this time and now she was turning it all in her favor. Oh well…I doubted that. But I'm in such a position where things are very messed up and I have to question everything

"After the three days in which I give you the dosages, if things don't start improving and your condition deteriorates fast then…maybe about two-three days tops." she explains and I swallow hard.

That meant that I probably have less than a week left in this world and I didn't have the chance to fix any of my mistakes. I looked at her, sincerely, showing her everything that's going on inside me. She pulls back for a moment, not because she is afraid, probably because she is surprised still with the syringe in hand and I swallow hard

"I don't suppose that as a vampire I get one last wish?" I ask and she furrows her eyebrows as she shakes her head

"What is it that you want?" she asks a bit too fast which probably surprises her as well and when I look at her again I can see it in her eyes-she probably regrets it, but she's already said it out loud. I wonder a lot before I answer. It was dangerous to ask this of her. Extremely dangerous. And not for me. I was already finished anyway. There was no getting out of here.

"I want to call my brother for a few minutes, if that's possible" I ask and she shakes her head sternly as she goes back to cleaning my arm

"Absolutely no" she cuts me off "You can easily trip me and tell him that you've been kidnapped" I laugh in her face and watch her getting ready to give me the shot. I pull away, desperate to buy myself a few more minutes

"I don't even know where we are, Gilbert" I say sincerely "And even if I did I would never expose him to such a risk. I don't want him to get caught. Plus, you were right before-I don't deserve anyone's love and I can assure you that my brother doesn't like me anymore than you do right now"

"Then why do you want to call him?" she asks confused and I shrug my shoulders

"He is my only family. If I'm going to die, I want to hear his voice one last time, that is all." and I am not lying. I don't want to send Damon some secret message or try to give him a hint as to what's going on with me and I hope that she can see that I'm sincere

"Please, Elena. I will never get the chance to make it right with him. I just want to say goodbye" I beg her and she wonders a lot about it. She knows that she doesn't have much time, though. It's been a while since the hunters left her here and they'll probably come by soon to make sure that she's fine. She has to act quickly and I watch her pace up and down the cell before me, wondering what on earth she should do "Please, do you have a sibling?" she suddenly stops and looks at me

"A younger brother" she says silently

"Then you know what it's like to feel the need to protect him and put him before everything else. My brother has done everything for me and I've disappointed him. I just want to apologize" I explain, hoping that this will make her take the decision easily "He deserves as much." she sighs and kneels back down to me, picking up back the injection

"Fine, but I'm going to do this, I need to make sure you won't be getting out of here" and before I can respond, I feel her pushing the shot in my arm. The pain hits me far too fast than I expected-she digs deep and keeps the syringe there until the shot is completely in my system. Then when she's done she takes it out, just as roughly as she put it in and takes out her scalpel, pulls up my shirt and drags the blade on the left side under my chest, creating a big gash there. The blood starts dripping down, but something about it is different-it's ticker and darker and I know that this means the poison is inside me already, my body trying to fight it. She checks it out and stares at my wound for a while as I take deep breaths, trying to concentrate on her instead of my pain. She was still as beautiful as before, she was still stealing away my heartbeat. I haven't felt like this in years. I guess it's for the better that I'll never get to know her better-getting closer to her, meant I'll ruin her world and I couldn't do that to her. I've hurt enough people already.

When she sticks a clean bandage to the cut she made and pulled down my shirt she throws the rest of her things in the medical bag and takes out her phone.

"I have two more dosages in the bag" she warns "If you try something stupid, I'll give you the shots and by tomorrow you'll be dead, do you understand?" she asks and I nod, promising that I won't attempt anything.

I tell her the number and she dials it with her steady white hands. I wonder how she manages to stay so calm, I was already starting to drown in pain and I felt the sweat forming on my forehead-that venom surely worked its way fast and she noticed it and gave me a curious look, one that her father has when he is wondering what is going on with my body after he was done hurting me. She was her father's daughter after all. I don't know what I was expecting.

Damon doesn't pick up the first time and it takes me another minute to convince her to call one last time, promising I'll leave her be after that. Whenever I hear the familiar signal, all I can do is pray that he picks up and I'm starting to lose my hope when I finally hear his voice

"Hello?" he says and I can hear how loud it is around him. I wonder where he must be, but I am so surprised by the sound of his voice that my eyes fill with tears right away. I haven't heard from him in a while. I've missed him "Hello, who's this?" he asks again and Elena furrows her eyebrows at me, wondering why I'm not speaking

"Damon" I finally say and I know my voice is so hoarse and weak that if it wasn't for his vampire hearing, he wouldn't have managed to distinguish a word "Hello, brother" I say and I hear a surprised sigh on the other line. He obviously makes his way out of the noise place because the music dies out

"Stefan? To what do I owe this pleasure, baby brother or are you drunk dialing me again?" he is in a surprisingly good mood, otherwise he would've been more sarcastic. Or maybe he is drunk himself. It sounds like he is in a bar.

"No, I called on purpose. I wanted to talk to you" I admit and I take a deep breathe, trying to swallow down my tears "I wasn't sure you'd pick up after…the way we parted last time."

"You mean after we fought in the basement because you were too damn stubborn?" he laughs and I smile at the sound of this

"I am sorry" I say and try to keep my voice even, but I guess he figures out something isn't exactly as it should be

"Oh, please, we'll just add that to the number of unresolved issues between us, won't we?" he asks and I shake my head even though he can't hear me. I can't look at Elena right now, I know she's curiously listening to every word we exchange

"No, not only about that" I say carefully, trying not to let my voice shake "I want to apologize for everything I did to you. For Katherine, for turning you that night, for causing you so much trouble when I was a ripper, for taking your choices away from you" I guess he walks even farther from the place he is, because now there's nothing but silence surrounding him "I'm sorry for hurting you."

"Stefan, what is going on?" he asks, now his voice is concerned, something I'm not used to hearing when it comes to Damon "Are you back to your ripper mode? Did you kill someone?"

"No" I laugh "No, I didn't kill anyone. I just wanted to hear your voice" I admit and my own voice cracks a bit but I manage to cover it with a cough and Elena shots me a dead stare

"Alright" he says, not really believing me "But you do sound drunk" he tries to find a reason behind my actions, it's not like I call him every day and I laugh, pretending to be a bit tipsy indeed, while I'm actually drowning in pain

"Yeah, yeah, I am a bit drunk, I am sorry" I lie, hoping he won't catch me

"I thought we agreed we'll see each other back in the fall in Mysic Falls, right?" he asks, looking for a confirmation to our arrangement and I squeeze my eyes shut, thinking how I'll disappoint him yet again.

I won't even be alive by the time he comes back to our hometown and he'll decide that I played him again and ran away, refusing to see him, refusing to make our amends and start repairing our relationship. I would hurt him, but at least he won't know what really happened

"Yes, absolutely" I say and Elena gives me a sign to wrap this up, we don't have any time left and I have to say goodbye, but how do I do that without actually using those words. "Damon, do you remember when this soldier taught us how to play football at camp when we were fighting in the war?" I ask as I remember one of the happiest days of my life in the midst of all the terror and fear. It was the only sunny day after a month of nothing but rain, the ground was still muddy, my uniform, my face, even my hands, they were so dirty, I looked nothing like myself. Even my blond hair was close to black like my brother's because of us constantly sleeping outside. Yet I was happy that day-I remember all the boys yelling next to me, pushing me down, throwing the ball in the air. I've never felt more alive or free. "When he wasn't even sure of the rules, but we had so much fun and we ran in the meadow and the rest of the men joined us?"

"Yes." Damon responds still sounding a bit confused but also harsh, because he doesn't want to recall one of the most awful moments of our lives "And the next day we got shot in battle, so what's your point Stefan?"

"I don't have a point." I say simply "I just remember how happy we were back then when we were human and not vampires, when there was nothing to stand between us. I miss that. I miss you, brother."

He goes completely silent on the other line and I know that there isn't much time left

"Stefan I don't under-" he begins, but I cut him off

"I have to go, Damon" I say harshly now, but my voice trembles and I'm sure he can hear it, even if I'm trying hard to cover it "Take care of yourself, yeah?" I say

"Stefan, where are you?" his voice is worried now. I didn't want him to worry "Tell me and I'll come get you"

"No, I'm alright, don't mind me I'm just drunk. I'll see you in the fall, back in our family house" I say feeling the tears fall down my cheeks "You better be there, okay? Promise me." he is quite stunned by my confused blabbing and I realize that I must really be sounding drunk, but in reality it's just the pain that is already consuming me. It's making everything worse and I can't stop myself from feeling so weak and empty.

"I-" Damon says confused "Stefan, what-"

"Promise, brother" I beg of him and he sighs, pretending to be annoyed and I hope he really isn't worried, because I never intended to do this to him. I didn't want him to doubt it. Knowing Damon he'll brush it off the minute he hangs up. He is not the sentimental type and I doubt his first thought will be that I was kidnapped by hunters and was being experimented on.

"I'll see you there" he promises and I sigh relieved. I don't know why. I won't be there to see him, I'll be dead and he'll hate me for not showing up, but I just feel the need to know that at least one of us will make it back to our home. That is somehow enough for me right now.

If not me, he will be there. He needs to find the peace I never will.

Elena hangs up and abruptly stands up, shoving the rest of her stuff in her bag and pushing her phone in her pocket. There's something different about her this time. She is no longer staring at me with resentment, she is confused and I don't know why. Did the conversation with my brother changed something? I doubted it. I will remain a monster in her eyes for as long as I'm alive. Which won't be too long now that I think about it.

"Elena" I call her out as she is about to leave. She doesn't turn around, I don't know why. She must hate me so much and I hate myself for doing this to people, for hurting them "Thank you" I say, but she doesn't respond.

I almost gasped from surprise when she turned around to close the door and I saw tears in her eyes.

* * *

 **A/N: I am sorry if you got an email for an update a few days ago. I was trying to post my Defan chapter and I placed it in this fanfiction by mistake, so I had to delete it later. Again, as I mentioned before those of you who do not enjoy the story are free not to read it. I don't know why someone decided that it's a DE story, either way I have always hated DE so obviously I am not writing a Delena story. Someone asked about Damon and Enzo and the answer is no-they are not captured here and they were never before captured by the Augustines. I'm doing this differently from the show.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Elena's POV**

I slowly opened the door of Stefan's cell and reluctantly got in, unwilling to face him, especially not after my father was just here five minutes ago. As he walked out he seemed somewhat lost in thoughts and the fact that he didn't say anything to me, meant that Stefan wasn't doing as good as he expected.

I haven't been here since yesterday when Stefan made me call his brother and I was extremely cranky for reasons I wasn't willing to admit even to myself. I couldn't sleep good, I kept thinking about him and what he told his brother and how ruined he looked after I hung up. I once again started having my doubts. Despite my hatred for him after finding out what he did and how many people he killed, there was still something about him…something that shook me from the first time I saw him, something that I couldn't get rid of no matter how hard I tried.

It didn't have anything to do with the kiss, or so I liked to think, but more about the way he acted. He wasn't full of himself or showing off like most vampires around here did when they were brought to their cells and threatened to kill us. He wasn't trying to get away either. He has peacefully accepted his faith-moreover, he believed he deserved everything that happened to him.

I close the door behind me and turn around to face him. I find him lying in his cot, curled up like a little boy, looking extremely pale and on the verge of falling asleep. When he heard the noise he looked up and surprisingly gave me a light smile. I was holding a big shot in my head-full with the next dosage of the werewolf venom and as he looked down at it, his smile faded away-he hated me doing this to him, and at the same time he didn't utter a word.

I think that's what really pissed off my father-most vampires yelled, screamed, begged for us to let them go, then they would threaten or promise that we'll rot in hell, but not Stefan. Stefan was calm and there was such wisdom in his eyes, as if he's seen everything there is to see and experienced every pain known in the world. He was afraid, I knew that, he was scared, but he wasn't showing it in any way.

"I was wondering when I'll see you" he let out slowly, his voice awfully hoarse and I approached him, catching myself feeling sympathetic. "Your father just left. He didn't seem happy" he continued and I kneeled down and put my hand on his wet forehead. I took out a cloth from my bag and cleaned away the sweat

"There's no way he can be happy" I mumble sadly. We both know what's going on here, there's really no point in lying to each other "Roll over" I ordered and he did it unwillingly so I can move up his shirt and check the wound I've made with the knife there, like my father asked.

It had worsened, there was too much blood oozing and the skin around it was black. He groaned when I touched it, but tried to swallow down his pain as usually.

"Does it hurt?" I ask a stupid question and he smiles sadly, shaking his head

"It does, but there are other things that hurt more."

"Have you been having nightmares already?" I ask as I take out some stuff that I'll need from my bag, just to distract myself from him. I can't look him in the eyes, he seems so broken. I could never understand what was it about that vampire that just changed me so much? How did I find myself feeling bad for a monster? Was it his words? That we were all monsters after all? That me and my father were not doing anything that different from what he has done? He woke something inside me. Was it compassion for those who didn't deserve it or just simple pity I couldn't figure out yet. "Hallucinations?"

He nods and grits his teeth while I brush away the blood from his wound and his body squirms underneath the pressure I apply.

"What are those other things that hurt more?" I ask, deciding to take his mind off the pain and he opens his beautiful green eyes to give me an understanding glance. He knew what I was doing and he appreciated it. Did he also sense how awfully confused I am right now? Could vampires do that?

"Regrets. For the things I'll never be able to do" he sighs "For never finding love again. For not making things right with my brother and earning his forgiveness. For not ending my life before I turned. So many things could be different if I have taken just one right choice" he explains and stares at the ceiling "I should've died that night. Like my brother wanted to. I took so many lives. I broke so many people." I swallowed hard. He was a dying man, who was going back to all the things he's done and regretting all the bad choices that he made.

"There's no point in thinking about this. You can't change it now" I say, trying to play out to be cold, but my voice shakes and I catch myself feeling awful

"Oh, you're pitying me. That is awful" the realization hits him and leaves him even more broken "I thought you hated me"

"I do" I say, but I don't think there was ever a moment when I meant it less. He smiles and nods, continuing to stare at the ceiling.

"'Good. You should hate me. I don't deserve love" his words break me even more and I find myself cleaning my throat just so I can swallow down the tears in my eyes

"Stop feeling sorry for yourself. There is no point in that. You can't go back and change things, you already got a second chance at living and you ruined it" I decide to go back to being my usual rude self, but the truth is, I want to bring him back to earth and give him some hope that it will all be fine.

I know it won't. I look at him and I am sure that my father was wrong about this-Stefan might've been strong before, but we underestimated him, he couldn't overcome this, it was just too much.

He pulled up a great fight. I've never seen a vampire struggling as much as him and coming out stronger in the end, but he was not unbreakable. And what really made it even worse was the talk with his brother yesterday when he lost all hope, because he realized he's not seeing him again

"Now at least be a man and suck it up" I scold him, but I know I don't sound convincing and I am surprised when he grabs my hand and squeezes it for a brief moment

"Thank you, Elena" he says sincerely, because we both know what I was trying and failing to do here. Instead of pulling away and hiding my hand in my pocket, I let him keep it in his for a brief moment-he was cold, the venom was killing him and I knew far too well that the rest of the time he had left would be nothing but misery "I'm sorry that I won't help you fix your medicine" he utters just as I'm about to stick the shot in his arm, but his words stop me

"It's okay, I mean there isn't a point in lying to each other, right?" he asks and interrupts me just when I opened my mouth to give him some lame line and lie that I don't know what he's talking about "I'm dying."

"You are" I respond, finding it hard to breathe right now and he closes his eyes for a brief moment, which gives me the opportunity to brush away the sweat from his forehead again. He was bad, really bad. I didn't know if after I put this shot in him, he'll survive tomorrow.

"Good. Now that we've got that cleared" his calmness surprises me. I can't believe that he's so strong "Can I ask you a favor? One last time, I promise." I furrow my eyebrows confused and clear look away uncomfortably for a moment. I don't respond or give him any indication that I've heard his words

"I know you hate me and that you have no reason to do this, but I won't be able to survive all this. I keep dreaming of my brother and it's ruining me, so…" I look at him, trying to find some strength inside me to hear him out, because despite everything he deserve at least this "Can you give me a stronger dosage of this thing today and get it over with?" he asks and my breath gets stuck in my throat.

"W-what?"

"I want to die today if possible" he says again, as calmly as before "I know you don't owe to me, but I'll save you the trouble. I think it's clear for your father that I won't make it."

"If my father thought you'll die, he would've made the hunters kill you by now" I respond seriously, trying to find some thought to distract him from the words he had just uttered.

"No, he's just clinging onto hope that things will change last minute and we both know they won't, so will you do this for me?" he asks again hopefully "Please, Elena." he begs me now and I can see all the pain in his eyes.

I stare down at the floor. I don't know what to do. I think that he's right-my father was hanging onto hope here, but judging by Stefan's condition, he would barely make it out by the end of the week. He was extremely weak and it was obvious that him surviving this was barely possible, but then again I really think he would've sent the hunters to kill him by now and he hasn't. All he did was order me to give him the next dosage. Maybe he saw something I was missing? Or maybe he was too stubborn and didn't want to believe that he's failing for yet another time.

But this wasn't about my father. It was about Stefan. It was about him finding his way to my heart, under my skin, everywhere. It was about that kiss, that I kept trying to forget, but just couldn't, no matter what. It was about his choice and whether or not it should be respected?

I found myself feeling so bad for him-my heart was telling me to help him and end his life, but my mind was screaming that it was wrong, that he was a vampire and he deserved dying in great pain, that he killed so many and this was nothing compared to the awful things he's done, that I could never feel anything, not even pity towards him.

But I did.

I did and the way he looked at me…It broke something in me.

"Alright" I said determined and he looked at me stunned. Obviously, he expected me to say no "But I don't have enough in me right now" I explain "I'll give you this dosage and I'll try to sneak in later tonight." he nods and smiles in my direction. I never thought anyone could be that happy about dying. It made me shiver and I hated myself for agreeing to do this, but I already promised.

"Thank you" he said and grabbed my hand again for a brief moment. I hated that he was doing this. Not because I was disgusted by him, but because he provoked feelings inside me that I didn't want to admit having "Thank you so much.

"Are you sure that this is what you want?" I ask him again and he nods calmly again, peacefully accepting death as if it's just the most normal thing on earth.

Why was I judging him? He was already dead once. He knows what it's like. Or does he?

I pull my hand away from him and clear my throat. He grows sad as he sees that he's made me uncomfortable, but I don't give him the chance to say anything, because I stick the shot in his arm and empty it before I get second thoughts. He grunts from the pain, yelps almost, but tries to silence his screams and after I pull it away, he rolls with his back to me and hides away his pain from me.

"God, that's strong" he mumbles and I swallow hard, feeling bad for not giving him the chance to at least get ready for it, but I knew that if I do, he'll only feel bad. Or maybe this was about me-maybe I wanted it to be over.

I find myself grabbing his shoulder and squeezing it tight, just to give him strength, or to give myself some, I didn't know. I only now realized that what we were doing isn't right. We were playing with their lives, just like they did with ours and Stefan has been right this entire time-we were no better than them.

His hand covers mine and he turns slightly, smiling for a brief moment, before the pain overwhelms him and he has to close his eyes and grit his teeth.

"Tonight" I whisper as I finally let go of him. He nods and I hurry to get out of this damn cell.

Because I just can't breathe.

 **Damon's POV**

I was hiding in the shadows, near some trees surrounding the Whitmore college campus and felt the anger built up in my with every passing minute.

After Stefan called me the other night, I knew that something was wrong, which is why I called the only witch who owed me a favor and asked her to do a locator spell. I thought that things would lead me to some old bar where my brother would be drinking and feeding off people's blood, but I was surprised when my blood ended up on this extremely insignificant point on the map while the witch was chanting next to me.

At first, I didn't want to believe it was true, so I made her repeat it a few times, because I thought she could be wrong, even if she was one of the most powerful witches I've met in my entire existence-she was after all a Bennett.

She hated me for my awful behavior and my sarcastic attitude, but she saw that I was worried and she repeated the spell two more times-each and every one of them, we were led here-Whitmore. A town close to ours. I've been here so many times while I was growing up and I never liked it. There was something dark about it-something that pushed even me away.

But this wasn't just about an inner hint telling me that whatever's going on here is wrong-I actually had troublesome thoughts. A few weeks back when I was in New York, an old friend of mine who owned a bar there, told me about this weird society in Whitmore where they were supposedly catching and torturing vampires. At the time, I shrugged it away-we've never before heard anything like this, plus he was slightly buzzed so how could I've believed him? But something inside me kept bugging me.

The way Stefan talked as if he's not going to see me again-his desperate attempt to promise me that I'll come in the fall and visit our town-it was strange. We've already agreed to see one another and even if we've had some bad moments in the past, I was willing to try and fix things between us. I've been lonely for too long and even if I was mad at him most the time for all the things that he did, there were also many moments when I was a crappy brother. Actually, most of the moments, I sucked. I just preferred hating him, because it was easier than admitting that I completely screwed up. I never helped him actually fight his bloodlust, because I was so invested in my own pain. There were just so many things I didn't do, because I was so buried in my own problems that I forgot to care enough about him like I did when we were humans.

But I cared enough now. He's been desperately trying to fix our relationship in the past few years and all I've been doing is being sarcastic to him or push him away. I never let him close enough, even though I needed him and I knew he needed me too. I was so heartless, because I've been so hurt, but the thing is-so was he and I had no excuses anymore. The way he talked to me the other night-there was surely something wrong and I had to figure out what it was.

The more I observed the place, the more I realized that the rumors are probably true. During the day, the campus seemed like the most normal place on earth, but when night fell, most of the people left the building and all the lights went off, except for those on the first floor.

There was something going on there, I could hear metal heavy doors being closed and opened constantly, people in white scrubs move to labs or rooms, carrying blood bags. But what convinced me that this is not just some college facility was those guys dressed in black leather jackets, with fancy guns tucked in their belts and bags full of weapons.

And normally, I would say that they are just buddies going on a hunting trip, hadn't it been for one of them who dropped his bag and wooden bullets fell off one of the pockets. He was so clumsy that after he cursed himself and ran for the truck, he forgot picking all of them and once I vampspeeded to the place and picked them up I was convinced. There were hunters here and most probably my brother was locked somewhere in this building.

I wasn't afraid to go in. Sure, if Stefan hasn't manage to get himself out by now, it meant that it probably won't be as easy to free him, but then again he was weaker than me as he fed off animals, that stupid idiot and plus I believed I was fast enough to do this. How hard can it be? Kill the guards, find the cells, break it, grab my brother and leave.

I sigh and decide to wait a few more minutes, even if I'm impatient. Maybe someone else will decide to get out. The less people were inside, the better for me. I wasn't in to have fun tonight. I just wanted to find Stefan. But there was this window up in the right corner where a room with lights shining brightly in the cold evening. I was hoping the person would give up and just go out-it was Friday night on a campus full of stupid idiotic people-they had to go to some party. It was just a rule that every stupid college student followed.

I was nervous and impatient-I had no idea what was going on with Stefan. The last time we were together, we got into a fight, because of me. I was picking up on him, I was drunk and I wanted to hit him, because I just had so much anger inside me. He felt it, which is why he let me get it all out on him. He struggled, but he wasn't really pulling up a fight-he was letting me beat the hell out of him, just because I was hurt and sad-the memories of Katherine had come back yet again and I hated everything around me. He didn't deserve it yet he pulled up with me, because that's how much he loved me.

I was impatient so I decided to finally get out of the shadows and leave and just as I approached the entrance and looked up at the window that was bothering me, I realized that the light was off even if I hadn't seen anyone leave. Maybe they decided to fall asleep, who knows. I didn't give a damn, I was just happy that there was one less stupid human that could stand in my way.

I quietly entered the place and ended up in a big hallway that lead to rolls of rooms, but I knew that this is not what I need. I had to find a way to get to the basement-that's where they must be keeping up all the vampires if this stupid story is real in the first place. I might be walking straight into a trap, but I loved my stupid idiot of a brother too much to even care, despite my inability to express it verbally.

It was good that the hallway was dark and I found myself checking out all of the doors until finally I ended up near a small staircase leading downstairs instead of upstairs with a heavy metal door saying DO NOT ENTER stuck on it. I smiled and pushed the door, which was surprisingly open. That really stunned me, but I decided that someone maybe forgot it and didn't think too much about it. I just had to get there.

The door made an awful screeching noise as I closed it and I was afraid that this was it-they would find me right here on the spot and I was about to get caught when a young boy in his early twenties dressed in what seemed like a guard's uniform made his way down the hallway and looked up at the stairs where I was hiding in the darkness.

I pressed myself closer to the corner of the damn thing and begged that he doesn't see me. He flashed a light in the darkness and surprisingly it missed me. So I was right-there was something down here if they've put a man to guide it. My brother was somewhere in those dungeons and I had to find him.

I swallowed hard as I saw the guy turn around and start going down in the other direction. He has almost disappeared behind a wall when I vampspeeded down there, grabbed him and dug my teeth in his neck. I held his mouth so he wouldn't scream and drank some from him, just so I was sure that he won't get up and cause me troubles.

Once I was done, I dropped him on the floor and he ended up there with a loud thud. I brushed away the blood from my face and looked around confused-there were rolls of rooms down this long hallway and I had no idea where to find my brother in this entire mess, but I knew I had no time, so I started walking down the corridor and soon found a pattern-the rooms on the right were something like doctors cabinets, which had beds and medical supplies and the ones on the left were obviously leading to something else.

The sight of it made me sick and I wondered if Stefan was ever in one of these rooms, if he was ever tortured. I could see the strains attached on the bed, the empty blood bags lying on the metal tables among clean scalpels and other surgical instruments. This place was hell and if he was here, then I was sure of one thing-he could never get out the same person. I had no idea what they did to him, but from what I've heard, this place was one of the most awful places a vampire can end up at.

I try to open the first door on the left, but I just can't, no matter how hard I try so instead, I decide to check on the second one. I am about to give up again when I realize how stupid I am-I knocked the guard down and the guard had all the keys I needed.

I rushed to his side, checked his pockets and snatched the bunch of keys. I managed to unlock the first door after seven unsuccessful attempts to get the right key and when I got inside and carefully closed everything behind me, I realized that I've ended up in a small hallway with cell rows on both sides. I start slowly walking down and checking for my brother frantically, figuring that I'm about to find him any minute now, but I can't see a single familiar face and the things I see and witness actually make me worry for the first time since I got here.

The vampires behind bars were extremely weak, most of them half dead. They've obviously not been fed or were given just blood enough to keep them alive. They were all extremely pale with multiple gashes and wounds on their skin, but ones made from a knife or more like a scalpel.

What really hit me most was the smell-it was awful, of rotting bodies. Most of them didn't even notice me, but those who did, shoved their hands between the bars and begged me to help them. I felt so horrible that I almost forgot that I have to get out of here-Stefan was nowhere in this cells. Once I was out in the hallway, I took a deep breath and without thinking twice, opened the second door.

He was nowhere to be seen there either even if it was the same as the first room-cells full of vampires. I wonder how many were they keeping here, I counted about 25 until now. Once I was out again, I decided to change my strategy. There was this white door at the end of the hallway, I only saw it as I decided to walk a little more down the corridor, so I figured I should try-it was different for some reason. Maybe Stefan was locked behind it.

It took me more than five minutes to finally open it and I swear, I could hear some movement on the floor above me but I was hoping it was just drunk kids who were desperately trying to find more liquor in the empty rooms. When I finally opened up and rushed inside, I crashed into someone and that someone yelled.

It was a girl and when I looked down at her I was about to yell out myself-she looked so much like Katherine. I grabbed her shoulders and kept her tight in my embrace. She was dressed in a nice red shirt and blue jeans with white scrubs on her skinny shoulders, her hair was long and straight and her eyes-God her eyes were just like Katherine's. She kept screaming though so I had to put my hand on her mouth and silence her

"Shhhhh!" I warn and her eyes go wide. She's scared, I can feel her trembling and just when I'm about to call her Katherine and ask her what the hell she's doing here if she's supposed to be dead, I hear her heartbeat.

This time I am the one who's surprised but I keep my grip on her tight, because if she leaves this place, both me and Stefan, if he was anywhere here, were dead

"Your name is not by any chance Katherine, is it?" I ask her and she shakes her head fast as she keeps trying to get away. I'll give it to her-she was strong, but I was way much stronger, especially after I fed really good off a few humans before compelling them to keep going their way. The guard's blood helped me too. "I am looking for a vampire" I start explaining but I don't let her go and hope that she'll soon give up fighting me "If I let you go now you'll tell me where he is without making any attempts to scream, because if you do, I'll snap your neck faster than you can say your name, alright?" she nods, but I don't let her go right away. When I finally do, she immediately tries to hit me and get through the door, but of course I'm faster and I grab her hand and twist it behind her back

"Stupid move, beautiful"

"Let me go!" she hisses and she makes me laugh

"I can paralyze you in matter of seconds, but since you're the only one here who can probably help me I think I'll wait." I say ignoring her attempts to get away "Now, tell me where I can find Stefan Salvatore" I ask and I feel her calm down as soon as I mention his name. She turns around and looks at me surprised, as if a sudden realization hits her and her breath gets stuck in her throat

"Damon" she says as if she's just making some great discovery "You are Damon" I furrow my eyebrows and am about to ask her where does she know about me, when we heard a painful yell from the room left to us and my heart freezes, because I immediately recognize the voice-it's Stefan's.

I rush to the door as I keep holding the girl's arm and push her next to me-I don't care if I'm causing her pain, because I just heard my brother's scream and it was like a dagger to my heart.

I make her open the door, because my hands are already kind of trembling and she doesn't waste any time in doing so. When we finally end up inside, I see my brother lying in something like a cot. He looks nothing like the Stefan I remember. He's dressed in a white shirt and blue jeans, but there is so much blood on him that he's barely recognizable. His face is pale and his hair is dirty and sticking in all the different directions. He's holding his right side and squirming from pain. When he sees me, he doesn't show in any way that he's recognized me, but he looks at the girl I've caught

"Elena…I think…I think I'm hallucinating my brother again" he mumbles and she turns to me, begging me to let her go. I don't want to, but I decide that she can't run away now, as we've closed the door behind us and the key was in my pocket as I ordered her to do so, so I let her go.

"Stefan!" I say and feel my voice shake, which is why I decide to clear my throat in order to hide it. The girl who he called Elena is already by his side, but I push her away and pick him up in my arms "Stefan, brother it's me!" I say and he looks up in disbelief, closing his eyes and opening them as if waiting for me to disappear, but I don't

"I'm here, I'm here and we're leaving, I promise" I say but he's not himself. Something is very wrong with him, he's sweating and his body is so extremely cold in my hands, even if when I touch his forehead, he is burning up. The blood coming from his side is oozing even now and when I pick up his shirt and look at it, I swallow hard, realizing just now how bad the situation is

"What have you done to him?" I ask as I turn to the girl who is sitting on the floor, observing us from there while gathering the spilled shots and bandages on the floor and throwing them in her bag "WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY BROTHER?" I ask angrily again and Stefan groans in my embrace from the pain he feels

"D-Damon?" he asks finally before I even manage to receive an answer from the girl. She looks like a kid to me. I could not believe someone like her could torture vampires or do such awful things to them "Is it really you?" I look down at him and he's smiling.

My little brother and his foolish smile, the same one he had when he was a child. I brush away the sweat from his forehead and bury my hand in his messy hair-God, he looked bad, what was I going to do with him.

"It's me, brother." I assure again

"You have to leave, they'll catch you" he whispers worriedly and closes his eyes again. It's hard for him to even speak, but he is still trying to protect me even when he's that bad.

"We're leaving." I say "Together, alright?" he looks at me just as confused as before. He's so weak and small in my hands, as if he's a child again and he fell off his horse while dad was away and I had to take care of him.

Only now he's way worse and he looked so bad. I put him back on the bed, grab the rope that his feet are tied with and use it on the girl instead, pulling her hands up above her head and tying her to the bars.

"What did you do to him?" I ask again, but she won't stop staring at my brother who was lying on the cot lifelessly. She looks at me and swallows hard, not knowing how to say what she has to.

"He has werewolf venom in his system" she blurts out as she finally looks me in the eyes

"What?" I ask confused and grab her neck, pushing her to the bars, ready to rip her head off from all the anger I felt inside "What did you just say?"

"He's dying" she speaks barely audible through my tight grip "There's nothing you can do, he's far too gone. He was part of an experiment, but he's too weak to survive it." her words anger me so much and just when I'm about to snap her neck I hear Stefan's weak voice from somewhere behind me

"Damon, no" he mumbles and he turns to me. His eyes are sad and full of so much pain "Don't hurt her" he begs and I decide that I have no time to deal with some stupid girl right now. I had to get out of here as fast, as possible. I leave her there tied up and go back to Stefan, grabbing his weak body in my hands and picking up, only so I can pull him closer to my chest.

Opening the door proves to be quite difficult but I manage and once I'm out in the hallway and the guard's body is still lying there helplessly, I decide that the coast is clear and rush outside with my brother in my hands. I don't stop running until I'm back to my truck and I carefully put him in the back seat, though he's lost consciousness so I doubted he felt anything at all.

Once I sat behind the wheel, I realized that I was shaking, but I picked up my phone and dialed Bonnie's number, but it gets me straight to voicemail

"Bonnie, I need your help" I began frantically, my hands dirty with Stefan's blood "I just broke my brother out and he's really bad" I turn around and look at the barely breathing Stefan "Actually…I think….I think he's dying, Bonnie and I..I don't know what to do, so please call me."

I hung up and squeezed my eyes for a brief moment. Then turned the engine on and sped up without even looking at the road. I turned to Stefan once again, reached out for his hand and squeezed it tightly even if he was so lifeless.

"It will all be fine, brother" I whispered "It will all be fine."

* * *

 **A/N: I'm sorry for not updating sooner. I'm extremely busy with college and only now did I get some time to write. I prefer it if you leave me reviews about wanting me to update here and not on my other fanfictions. I understand if some of you are upset that I update the Defan story and not this one, but those are written out before and this fanfiction I have to sit down, think over and write. I hope you enjoy this chapter!**


	8. Chapter 8

_**A/N: I am really sorry for the long wait. I had awful exams and I had such a hard time studying and literally no time for anything, I feel like I went through hell, but I finally passed the last one yesterday and I sat down to write the first chance I had. I really hated that I had to keep you up so long.**_

 _ **Now, to answer some of you-I get that some are really passionate about their hatred towards Elena, but I'm really not trying to make her out to be the worst person out there. She's in this mess, because of her father and she has certain understandings of the world they live in because that's how she grew up. Stefan on the other hand, is also fighting his demons, not only the ones concerning his Ripper days, but also his family problems. So they are both experiencing similar stuff on both sides of two worlds. My intentions is not really to make you hate Elena. I also have no plans to bring Klaus up, at least not for now. Someone asked about me writing a cancer story with either Defan or Stelena and the truth is that I actually wrote such a story last summer (a Defan one), but I never posted it, first because I didn't get the chance to finish it as it hurt too damn much to write it and second of all because it's not written well enough.**_

 _ **Thank you all for your reviews and your patience! Enjoy and let me know what you think!**_

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 **Damon's POV**

I'm sitting on a chair next to Stefan's bed and holding his hand. I've brought him here only last night and Bonnie came two hours later with all her books and her dju-dju magic stuff, bottles with herbs and candles, things I didn't even have the slightest clue of even if I've been alive for more than a 170 years and I've had spent some time around witches.

I had no idea what we are going to do with him. He was getting worse with every passing hour and up until now she couldn't figure out a way to do anything, except take his pain away every now and then when it got too worse.

I couldn't help but go back to the moment when I found him lying in that dirty cot in the cell, not even realizing who I was. It's true that my brother and I have been going on a rough patch all those years. We had our disagreements and I often did nothing but burst out at him and be angry, because that's who I was-I was full of so much anger. I piled it up inside and every now and then I would lash out and kill people or cut any connection I had with my brother, who was the only person on this earth who made me feel human again.

When I saw him like this-so lifeless and barely holding on to life, I was for the first time not only angry, but scared as well, and the fear was piling up inside me slowly, steadily like snow falling for the first time on the cold, frozen ground.

It was new and unexpected. I thought I would be mad more than anything when I finally found him, scold him for getting himself in some mess, but now…he was actually so bad that I had no idea what to do and I was leaving his life in the hands of a witch who I've only met less than a year ago and with whom I've formed a strange friendship because I've saved her life twice by now.

When he called me the other day and we talked, I felt like something wasn't right, but I convinced myself that this was just the alcohol in my blood playing tricks with my mind and my damaged dark soul. But something in his voice…it was so broken. I should've known.

"I should've known" I whisper to myself ass I brush away the sweat from his forehead with the towel.

He moves left and let's go of my hand, groaning out in pain and that's how I know that this was the end of his resting. He would get worse now. It's what's been happening for the past night.

He mumbles something and raises his hands, he's probably having a nightmare. I grab his hands again and try to push him down the pillow

"Stefan, it's alright" I say, but he's not opening his eyes" Dammit, not again" I say angrily as he starts tossing himself in the bed, kicking and squirming from all the pain. I move up his shirt and see the bandage that I've made only an hour ago already soaked with blood

"Bonnie!" I call her our "Bonnie, come here, dammit!" I curse as I move up on the couch and raise him up, pushing his back to my chest and brushing away the sweat once again. He's still not opening his eyes, instead he's groaning and tossing and I know that he was getting worse

She comes rushing through from the living room and stops just for a minute to process what was going on.

"What are you staring at? Come here, he's in pain!" I urge her angrily and she furrows her eyebrows at me, wanting to scold me, but knowing that I am only like that because my brother is dying in my hands

She sits on the couch next to his legs and grabs his hands, starting to mumble some spell which is supposed to take his pain away. Stefan settles down for a minute and his breathing evens. I watch her squeezing his hand so tightly as if she wanted to take away all the poison inside his body, which only made me even more grateful for having her here. If I was alone, I would be going out of my freaking mind.

When she opens her eyes however, I can see the worried expression on her face and I swallow hard

"What is it?" I ask and she looks away uncomfortably "What is it, Bonnie? Did you feel something?"

"His body is giving out on him" she sighs tiredly "There's too much poison inside him, it's killing him and it's not going to wait much longer" I tense at her words and look down at Stefan who's eyes were still closed. I couldn't lose him.

"Are you sure there isn't anything in your books about this?" I ask again and she avoids my look again

"I haven't managed to read all of it. I still have to go through some stuff, maybe I will find something" she tries to encourage me with a small smile, but I know that this isn't supposed to calm me down. Stefan didn't have much time and I had to do something.

"Dam-on" he mumbles out as he stirs in my embrace and opens his green eyes, looking up at me. He reminds me of when we were kids and he would often stay in my bed at night when he's woken up after a bad nightmare and beg me to let him in my room so he wouldn't be alone

"Hey" I greet him with a weak smile as he tries to move up and sit, but he just doesn't have the strength so he ends up back in my embrace "How do you feel?" I ask and he just shrugs his shoulders

"I'm all good. It doesn't hurt as much" he lies and I shake my head at his stupid attempt to calm me down even when he was the one who's dying.

"He needs blood" Bonnie tells me when she pulls up his shirt and takes a look at the soaked bandages wrapped around his weak torso and almost gasps from the view of his wrecked body.

I have no idea what they've done to him over there, but surely it must've been hell. He had wounds all over his body, old and fresh ones, which didn't manage to heal, probably because he wasn't given enough blood. There was this wound at the back of his head that was making me shake with anger and while I was changing his bandage I noticed so many scars on his body, scars that weren't supposed to be there. They've completely wrecked him and it made me want to cut their heads off and drain them off their blood for doing this to my little brother.

I grab the bottle from the nightstands, unscrew it and press it to Stefan's mouth. He doesn't want to drink at first, because he knows it's human, but I don't give him any time to protest and just shove it in his mouth making him drink. He groans at first, but then starts swallowing.

The blood usually helped the wound on his chest shrink or at least not ooze so much, but this time after he drinks up the whole bottle, he groans out in pain and in a minute his shirts soaks with blood.

"What the hell is going on?" I ask, trying to hide the worry in my voice as I put my hand over Stefan's who's trying to prevent the wound from bleeding so much by putting his hand on it. But he just can't and I can't either-the wound keeps bleeding so fast, that we can't do anything to stop it. Bonnie hands me a couple of towels and I press them to it, but I know that won't help "This hasn't happened before!" I look at her confused, terrified and she swallows hard, not knowing what to say, because she had no idea what's going on.

"It's fine, Damon" Stefan tries to say, but I am not even listening to him. I stand up and put him down on the pillow again, grabbing my jacket from the couch and throwing it over my shoulders. It was time to do something. I couldn't stand here and stare at him, dying in my hands. He was getting worse and if we didn't do something soon, he would die.

"Where are you going?" Bonnie asks as she sees the determination on my face once I head to the door

"Make sure he's fine!" I tell her as I turn my back on her, but she grabs my hand and spins me over. My brother is just as terrified as I am, but not because he's hurt, rather it is because he's afraid I'll do something stupid

"Damon, don't!" he begs, even if he doesn't know what I'm about to do "Please, just stay here!"

"I'm going to fix this" I announce and I look down at Bonnie, avoiding my brother's worried green eyes "You'll take care of him while I'm gone, yes?" I ask and she nods, promising that she won't leave her side and I know she won't because I trust her that much to leave Stefan in her hands in this condition.

I am off the door before he can say anything else to stop me, I couldn't take seeing all the sadness in his eyes, all the worry. I had to get myself together and go back to where this all started.

I had to find that girl who was with him when I broke inside. I had to go back to Whitmore.

 **Stefan's POV**

I take a sharp deep breath as I open my eyes, covered in sweat again. I turn around to look at the clock on the nightstand only to realize that it's been less than twenty minutes since Damon left the flat.

Bonnie was nowhere to be seen, she must've gotten back to the living room and to her books, trying to figure out a way to help me. I didn't know why she was doing all this, but if she was by my brother's side right now it must've been because he helped her somehow and that made me feel good.

All I wanted was for Damon to find his way out of that darkness that was surround him and that I put him through once I made him turn. I've always blamed myself not only for all the lives I took, but for the bodies he left behind him too, because I was the one to lead him down this dark road to begin with and that's one of the reasons I despised myself so much.

Despite all the pain I was in, despite the fact that I was dying, in the last twenty four hours I was also happy for I was with him. I hated the fact that he was so worried all the time, that he had no idea how to ease my pain, but I was glad to have him here. Especially in such a moment.

When I asked Elena to cut this whole thing short and give me another dosage, I've embraced the fact that I'll die alone, which is why I wanted it over faster. I couldn't bear the thought that I wouldn't get to see my brother at least once more before I die, but now that this has happened, I was relieved. I was just hoping he would be back before I start getting worse and can't recognize him anymore.

I knew things weren't going according to his plan, but the fact that Bonnie was taking my pain away with whatever magical trick she knew, it was helping. A lot. And that's another thing I felt guilty about-she seemed like a nice young girl, probably Elena's age and Damon dragged her into this because of me just like Elena was dragged into the whole Augustine society because of her father.

Elena. I wondered what happened to her after Damon got me out of this hell house. We probably got her into trouble with our disappearing act, but I'm sure her father must be happy that she's fine. I never wanted Damon to hurt her. I was still so confused about everything that happened to us there. The only thing I was sure of was that I wanted to kiss her, even if it was the wrong thing, even if…she was not supposed to be involved with a vampire. Even if I knew how wrong all of this was for her. She was right all along, I realized it only now, when I was dying and seeing the way I was torturing my closest person-I was a monster and all monsters deserved to die.

I try to raise myself up, because my chest hurts too much, but the pain is excruciating and the only thing I actually manage to do is cause myself more pain. I yelp out and collapse back on my pillows, hoping that Bonnie is too busy reading to hear me.

Thanks God, she doesn't come rushing to the room and I close my eyes, trying to swallow down all the pain and sadness that I feel. But I can't-it's just too much, so I turn to the right side, facing the couch and press my hands to my bleeding wound, feeling so damn horrible.

That was it-I was dying and no matter what Damon was trying to do, he wouldn't be able to help me. I only wish he could come back before it was too late.

I squeeze my eyes shut and try to silent my groans in the pillow-I didn't want anyone else to feel bad for me. I didn't deserve that but at the same time I wanted to forget all about the pain so I tried falling asleep, which didn't prove to be so hard as the pain was exhausting me. The last thing I remember was that it hurt too bad that I just wanted it to be over with and the blood was dripping through my hands.

 **Bonnie's POV**

I slowly stood up from the floor and stared down at my grandmother's old and too heavy grimoire, going through the last few lines over and over again as if I could change what was written. My eyes filled with tears for a brief moment before I took a deep breath and squeezed them, trying to overcome all emotions that I currently felt inside.

Damon won't be happy. He won't be happy about this at all.

But now he was gone, so I could first try and talk to Stefan if he was even in a condition to do so.

I slowly, patiently walk to the other room only to find him asleep and crumpled in two on the couch, the blanket on the floor and his t-shirt wet. I toss the grimoire on the coffee table and rush by his side, slowly turning him over. He opens his eyes and I can see all the pain he's trying to hide and run away from in his sleep, but now that he was awake it was all coming back to him and I help him get more comfortable on the pillows as I toss the blanket over him. His hands are bloody, and so is his whole chest, but when I try to lift it up and look how the wound is, he shakes his head.

"It stopped bleeding now" he says barely audible as he squeezes his eyes and moves up. He's quite the picture-sweaty and in pain, blood everywhere, it was making my heart ache for him. He didn't seem like a bad person, even if Damon has mentioned many times that they are not on good terms, I didn't know why that was. To me he was the complete opposite of Damon-he seemed kind and selfless and he wanted to suffer on his own. I think he was both relieved and angry that Damon found him-he wanted to have him here in case he died, but he didn't want him to suffer and I guess that was really taking a toll on him.

"Are you okay?" I say before even realizing how stupid of a question that is and look away uncomfortably, of course he wasn't okay.

"I was dreaming of Damon and I as kids" he just responds, avoiding giving me any information about his condition "I had this pony Tessa and he had this big black mare Harriet" he explains and I can see him going back to the time when things were a lot more easy than they were now "I always wanted to ride his horse as it was bigger and fancier than my little pony and one day I sneaked in the barn when our father was away and got up on Harriet's back. I barely made it out on the meadow when Damon ran outside, rushing by my side. He has seen me sneaking in. He took me off the horse and dragged me back inside and he was so angry that I've done this. He said I could fall, that the horse doesn't know me that well and she could throw me off her back whenever she wanted. This is one of the first times that I remember pissing him off." I smile as I listen to him, trying to imagine a younger version of a worried for his brother Damon. "I haven't seen him that angry in a long time…until today" I look at him again and he smiles knowingly

"By the look on your face, I can say that there's something you want to tell me" I swallow hard and I nod, my look falls back on the book I've tossed on the table and I wonder how I should start "It's okay, you don't have to worry" he urges me again, I can see that the pain is coming back, he has a hard time speaking, but he's trying.

"I…found something" I say and for a moment I catch a glimpse of hope in his eyes, until he realizes that what I'm about to say is not entirely good. It breaks my heart that I'm going to do this to him "There's this spell that my grandma wrote about. It's really…intense and kind of complicated so I'll have to practice for a few hours if we decide to do it" I explain, refusing to get to the bottom of it

"And?" he asks fearfully when I realize that I've suddenly stopped talking for a moment and he was staring at me intensely "What does it do?"

"Well…I'll basically try to get as much of the poison out of our body as I can. There are some herbs that I can use and we'll need your brother's blood to complete it as well."

"My brother? Why my brother?" he raises up confused, not willing to involve Damon in this

"Because I need the blood of someone who's willing to sacrifice everything for you, someone you love very much…and judging by how worried out of his mind he was when he called me last night, I'm guessing that he's exactly what I need."

"But he'll be fine. Nothing will happen to him?" he asks again, putting Damon before his needs and I nod. He leans back on his pillows, obviously thinking before he looks up at me again, his eyebrows furrowed "So…you can take most of the poison away, but…what does this mean?"

"Look, Stefan" I decide to be completely honest with him "There is no way that I can save your life. There is no cure for a werewolf bite, it's meant to kill you" my voice shakes and I avoid his look, but I decide to swallow down all my stupid feelings. This was about him and being honest with him. He was Damon's brother and Damon has saved my life twice and kept my grandmother save-he deserved this, I owed him so much "But…I can give you more time" I admit and he gives me a curious look

"Time…how much time?" he asks and I gather all the strength I have so as not to look away from his optimistic green eyes. There were obviously stuff that he regretted. He wanted to fix them, I could see it.

"About a year" I admit and his eyes go wide. Did he think it's too much or too little? "If I preform the spell today, you'll be all better for about three or four months, maybe even half a year and then-" I take a deep breath, not knowing how to say what's coming next

"Then what?" he asks barely audible, he is as scared as I am

"Then your wound will start opening again. You'll be in pain, you'll hurt a lot then if you drunk more blood you'll heal, until the next month comes and like this over and over again until-"

"Until it gets as bad as it is now" he finishes my sentence, but I shake my head

"It will be worse than now, Stefan." I explain and see him swallow hard. I was not trying to scare him, it's just how it was "You'll hurt twice as much and then…then you'll die." he nods and clears his throat, staring down at the blood on his shirt "I don't want to pressure you into this. I am just telling you so you can decide and when Damon comes back-"

"Damon won't know about any of this" he interrupts me, his voice serious now. Then he goes back to being silent for a few minutes again before he looks up and stares at me intensely "I want you to do the spell" he whispers as if afraid someone could hear him "I want you to give me more time" he admits and I realize how human he looks in that moment "But we're not going to tell Damon."

"But-"

"No! He won't know!" he raises his voice now and moves, up, leaning on the pillows, trying to be on the same level as me "I won't do this to him! We'll only tell him that you found a spell and that every once in a while near the full moon, I'll feel bad, but that you'll heal me completely."

"Stefan, I-"

"Please!" he begs this time "I have hurt him so many times, I just want to do right by him now. I want to fix all my mistakes." I look him in the eyes and sigh. Damon will be mad if we do this, but it's for his own good. He won't survive his brother's death. At least now, I could give Stefan the chance to make things right, to say a proper goodbye and when Stefan's ready, he'll tell him the truth and they can spent as much time as they want together

"You've seen how ruthless he can be sometimes. He's like this because of me" Stefan admits and I furrow my eyebrows "I want to help him as much as I can while it's still possible. Please."

I sigh and stare down at my lap for a moment fidgeting with the hem of my shirt until I feel his bloody hand reaching out to mine. I look up and see him looking at me expectantly, hopefully.

"Alright" I agree "I'll do it" he smiles and leans back on the pillows

"Thank you. I owe you." he says "I'll do anything you need me to do."

"Just…be with your brother." he nods, promising me that he'll do it and just when I am about to get up and start preparing for the spell, the front door opens and Damon rushes in, but he's not alone.

He's holding a girl with a beautiful brown hair by the neck and pushing her forward.

"What the hell are you doing?" is all I can hear Stefan's weak voice coming from behind me

 **Damon's POV**

It took me fifteen minutes to get back to Whitmore and find the girl's dorm room. However she wasn't inside and I realized that in order to find her and not get caught by some hunter, I'll need some time.

The place was full of them, especially on the first floor, close to the basement where I went in to take Stefan out and I had to do my best to blend in and mix with the other students so that no one would decide to stop me and ask me what the hell am I doing here. I knew that this was stupid. And reckless, but I had to find her-she was the reason Stefan was like this, I knew it, and maybe she had something like an antidote or a way to figure out some medicine that could help him. There had to be.

The fact that she was part of this whole Augustine thing and the realization that she resembled Katherine so much was bothering me to no extent, but remembering that I had a brother at home who was begging for someone's help and who was barely holding on to life, made it easy for me to swallow down whatever doubt I had inside and keep searching through the corridors.

She was nowhere to be seen. I spent more than an hour looking for her, I even asked a few college guys about her as I remembered Stefan calling her Elena, but it was futile. It seemed as if she had disappeared.

And then I went outside and decided to hide behind one of the corners where I could observe the big backyard that this stupid college had, and try to find her.

I almost missed her actually.

I would've turned my back and drove all the way home when I saw her under a three with a book in hands, far away from the rest of the college guys and girls who were either having picnic, were trying to study or were tossing a football around just for fun. She was so distant from them, as if she didn't belong to their world at all.

And she didn't.

She belonged to mine. Even if she was human.

I carefully approached her so that no one would see me and once I was behind the three, I came from behind her and covered her mouth with my hand

"Don't move, don't scream, don't struggle!" I warned and I put my other hand on her waist, trying to steady her "I won't hurt you. I want you to come with me and help me fix my brother, but if you try as much as yelling out once I remove my hand away from your mouth, I will snap your neck and not think twice about it, do you understand?" I ask and she doesn't even dare move for a moment. God, she looks so much like Katherine, yet she seems so different. Cunning still, but different. I can't believe I listened to Stefan when he asked me not to hurt her. "Just nod" I tell her and she does that

I finally let go of her and the minute I do, I know she tries to run, but I grab her wrist and pull her back to me. I get out the rope I had in my pocket and tie her hands behind her back as best as I could without anyone noticing. I've pulled us closer to the forest, but still, you never know when some drunk college kid will appear from somewhere.

"I can't-" she begins, but I don't let her finish her sentence, because I put some tape on her mouth and start dragging her towards my truck

"You better reconsider what you were about to say, because if you don't save my brother, I'll kill you and everyone you've ever loved." I say seriously as I push her in the backseat "Don't mistake me for Stefan. I'll give you hell if he dies and make a bloodbath out of this stupid shithole of a college."

She whimpers afraid as I jump in the driver's seat and drive off.

I make it back home in less than half an hour and she struggles a lot before I manage to get her out of the car and rush her inside the building in a way that no one will see me kidnapping a girl.

Once I finally burst through the door, I find Stefan and Bonnie talking to each other on the couch and the minute my brother realizes who I was bringing, he yells out angrily.

"What the hell are you doing?" he says and tries to sit up and overcome his pain, but I guess the wound on his chest was giving him even a harder time now, because a second later he falls back on the pillows. That doesn't stop him "Elena?" he asks as if he's wondering whether or not he's hallucinating "What did you do to her? Why on earth is she tied like this?" he continues raising his weak voice and I can sense he's panicking.

I don't get why since those people tortured him for months and they deserved nothing but receiving the same treatment. I am surprised by his behavior, but then again I noticed that there was something between them back when I was getting him away. Something happened. Something I didn't know about.

"Damon, who's this girl?" Bonnie ask as equally confused as she stands up and approaches us. Elena is staring between the three of us terrified but when her look falls on my brother, her eyes widen at the realization that he's worse than he was a day ago

"This is the person who tortured him" I explain as I turn to Bonnie angrily "I brought her because she might know how to stop all this"

"She didn't torture me!" Stefan yells out again and I see that he finally succeeds to sit in the couch. He tosses the blanket away and I notice his bloody shirt, which makes me shallow hard "It was her father, she has nothing to do with this, you have to let her go!"

"I'm not letting anyone go! Not until she tells me how to save you!" I say as I take the tape off her mouth without warning her and she yelps out from the pain, but she can't even grab her face as her hands are tight behind her back

"I told you! I don't know how to help him!" she turns to me angrily "There is no antidote! No medicine! This is a poison that my father developed in order to help people. He wanted to find a vampire who'll survive it and drain them of their blood so he could heal others" she blurts before I even get the chance to ask her all the stuff I wanted. She ruins my hopes with three sentences and I catch her throwing sad looks at my brother "I am sorry. This is how it is. I wish I could do something to help you, but…"

"Why him? Why did you choose my brother?" I ask as I grab her wrist again and try to squeeze out an answer from her

"DAMON!" Stefan interrupts once again and I find him trying to stand up. He's too weak and he staggers and if it's not for Bonnie to catch him, he would've fallen on the ground "Let her go!"

"Why my brother?" I ask again and she hisses when I apply more pressure in her wrist

"LET HER GO!" he yells again, but I ignore him

"Because he was the strongest one we had in months and my father wanted to test him. He underestimated his strength. Stefan was different, but he was weakened out and his blood was drained with vervain. He can't survive it" she adds and she looks me right in the eyes. She was brave, I'll give her that.

"And that is why you won't survive either" I say as I put my hands on her neck and turn it to the right, getting ready to bite right into her

"NO!" both Bonnie and Stefan yell in my direction and I look up annoyed "Don't do it!" Bonnie says "I found a way to help him" my breath gets stuck in my throat

"What?" I ask weakly as I let Elena go and take a step forward "You did what?"

"I found this spell" she explains "It's a pretty difficult one, but if he survives it, he'll be okay" I swallow hard, trying to remember how to breathe. Stefan is still hanging on her shoulders as he looks at me tiredly and nods, confirming her words "He'll have a few bad days on the full moon every once in a while, but he'll be alright."

"Really?" I ask, not believing her words "You can help him?" she smiles in my direction and I feel like I can breathe again

"I can help him." she promises "But you have to let this girl go" that's Bonnie for you. She always brought me back when I got too carried away. She helped me find myself. Just like Stefan did.

I turn to Elena who's standing between Bonnie and Stefan on one side and me on the other.

I furrow my eyebrows and shake my head

"Not yet" I announce and Stefan grunts angrily in my direction "Not until you do the spell and I'm sure he's fine."

"Damon-"Stefan intervenes again but I don't give him the chance to say anything else

"Don't Damon me. You're barely alive because of them. Nobody touches my brother and gets away with it."

"What are you saying?" Bonnie asks confused

"I'm saying that I want my revenge."


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: I am really sorry for disappointing you that much and not posting for so long. I have kind of lost inspiration to write about this story and I have focused on working on other things, but my muse came back a few days ago and I sat down to write. This chapter is longer and I tried to include everything in it, Defan, Stelena and even a little Bamon. I hope there are still people reading this and I would very much appreciate your reviews.**

* * *

 **Elena's POV**

Damon is holding me very tight and before I know what's going on he raises his hand up, digs his teeth into his wrist and then shoves it in my mouth.

I hear Stefan yell and I try to resist swallowing the blood. I wasn't exactly familiar with the turning ritual and how vampires became ones, but I was sure that whatever Damon was doing, might be the initiation of one.

Next thing I know, someone is pushing Damon back and I stagger to the wall, leaning on it in the last minute and trying to stabilize myself. I am breathing deep and trying to spit out all the blood I swallowed, but it's impossible, I can feel the burning sensation it leaves inside me. When I turn left, I see Stefan in his very weak state, pinning his brother to the wall and Damon laughing with his mouth bloody and his wrist almost healed.

"What the hell did you do!" Stefan yells at him, his voice, I realize, is barely audible and it takes Damon less than thirty seconds to push him away, in a very gentle manner, so as not to hurt him and turn back to me

"I did what you didn't have the guts to do" he says a bit venomously, but I realize he's just trying to bring his brother back to earth. We were enemies after all, we had to remember we are such "She tortured you and she's the reason you're almost dying. I want to make sure that you'll heal before I let her go and don't tell me it's not the smart thing to do."

"What's happening to me?" I ask afraid as I slip down the wall and brush away the blood from my mouth, I am terrified, for the first time since Damon caught me. "Am I becoming…" I can't say it out loud, but by the look of pleasure on Damon's face I can say that he enjoys my moment of weakness

"No!" now Bonnie intervenes as she steps closer to Stefan and his brother, looking at him furiously "You're fine as long as you don't die with his blood in your system." she doesn't even look at me, I can't say if she feels sorry for me or if absolutely everyone in this room hate me "You shouldn't have done this, Damon" she says coldly "Our agreement was that nobody gets hurt. I can walk right through that door now and not think twice about it!"

"You won't." Damon waves away her empty threats and acts as if he hasn't done anything wrong.

Stefan's eyes are pinned on me, but he's grabbing the wooden chest next to the door and trying to support himself, he tries to take a step forward and get to me, but Damon grabs his hand

"Don't you dare now!" he warns and I assume he's still afraid that I could hurt his brother "Let's get this over with!" he turns to Bonnie and I can see how pissed off she is.

She raises her hand and pins Damon to the wall, he suddenly starts squirming and trying to catch his breath and Stefan looks frantically between the two of them. I gasp surprised realizing just now that she was a witch. My father, he always dreamed of finding a witch and making her help him torture the vampires. I know he has seen one, but I on the other never had.

"You" she approaches him "Don't tell me what to do and what not, Damon" she says through teeth "I do what I want to do and I can kill you right here right now if it wasn't for the good heart of your brother and the fact that I owe you, but make no mistake" he's kicking his feet in the air and grabbing his neck as she tortures him "If you cross a line and hurt innocents I will kill you and Stefan won't be able to stop me. Are we clear?" she asks, but Damon just grunts so she twists her head a bit and that makes the pain unbearable or so it seemed

"Bonnie please" Stefan tries to intervene with his weak voice, but she doesn't even look at him

"Are we clear, Damon?" she raises her voice now

"Y-yes" he replies and she finally moves back and lets him drop on the ground.

He doesn't seem even slightly surprised or confused by her behavior. For what I knew vampires and witches hated each other. There was a reason that they were currently not trying to kill one another in this room but I was oblivious to it

"Damn, you've got fire, Bon-bon" Damon jokes as he stands up

"D-Damon" Stefan calls him and when I focus back on him, I see him barely standing on his feet.

Damon's attitude suddenly changes as he rushes to grab Stefan and throw his arm over his shoulders. The wound I've made myself only a few days ago on his right side is bleeding so hard that when Damon puts his hand over it, it has no effect at all. Stefan squeezes his eyes and breathes in heavily while Damon's eyes focus on me and I can see how much he hates me

"You" Stefan begins and looks at his brother "You gotta let her go" he nods at me, but I don't think he has the strength to look at me right now, though I do. I am staring at him and I feel so terrible for everything I did.

Yes, he was a monster, yes, he was a ripper, but there was something in him. Something else. A light that I could not even find in myself. He had a good heart. But he was also a murderer and I have never been more conflicted in my life as I am now.

Deep down, what my heart tells me, is that I shouldn't have done this-I should've never hurt him like that, but then I hear my father's voice in my head and I remember all the things he told me about vampires-I look at Damon and I see them as monsters once again.

They are the two opposites-Damon's darkness was as if surrounding him and I don't think I can ever find it in me to have compassion for a vampire like him and then there was Stefan-he was barely holding on, leaning on his brother's shoulder when his eyes fell on me and with one look he wished to tell me how sorry he is for what Damon did. After everything I put him through, he has it in him to be good towards me. I had such a hard time understanding this.

"I'm not letting her go until I am sure you're fine so stop arguing with me about that" Damon cuts him off once again and then turns to Bonnie "Can you take him while I tie her up?" he says. Bonnie hesitates and I can see that she's unwilling to participate in this "Come on" Damon pushes her" You know I can't let her go now, she'll run straight to her people and we'll be dead in a few hours."

"Fine, stop pushing me for godssakes!" she scolds him as she takes Stefan away from him and he leans now on her small shoulders

"He is dying, you damn right I'm going to be in a rush!" Damon spits back as he comes by my side, raises me up roughly, grabs my shoulder and leads me to a chair, where he puts me down and ties my hands and legs very tight so I wouldn't have the chance to get away. In the meantime, Bonnie has put Stefan down the couch, picked up her books and herbs and started making some kind of circle with them

"How are we going to do this?" Damon asks next as he throws another worried look at Stefan, whose eyes are closed and breathing very shallow "He doesn't have much time, are you sure you can pull this off?"

"I'll try" she responds as she keeps doing her thing

"What do you mean you'll try?" Damon raises his voice angrily "Can you do it or not?"

"Damon," she stands up and grips the small jar she was holding very tightly "You need to understand that this spell is a pretty difficult one and yes I might've not done it before, but it's your brother's best shot and considering that he has hours to live if we don't do anything, I don't think you have much of a choice." she cuts him off and he sighs, as he looks at Stefan who opens up his eyes and tries to raise himself a bit, but Damon places his hand on his shoulder and pulls him back down

"Don't move" he orders him then grabs Bonnie's hand and starts tugging her to the kitchen "We have to talk you and I" he tells her and she tries to get away from him but when she sees that this isn't another one of his tricks, she complies and Stefan and I are left alone.

At first he makes no attempt to move at all, I can see that his chest is barely rising up and down, his hand is resting on his side and even though the blood has lessened, it was still soaking his shirt-he looked like he went through hell.

"You know" he speaks up and opens his eyes "There's no need to be afraid. My brother will let you go" he says with certainty

"What tells you I am afraid?" I ask him curiously and he smiles

"I can hear your heart beating out of your chest, Elena" he states and I smile back. I've forgotten that he still has his vampire hearing "It will be fine."

"How do you do that?" I ask next and he raises his eyebrows confused "How do you find it in yourself to be good towards me after everything I've put you through? I just…don't understand" I admit it and he smiles again before closing his eyes for a minute and then swallowing down whatever pain he was going through only to open them up again

"You're not a bad person" he states "And I can't blame you for hating me…hell, I hate myself. You've just been told things that shaped who you are. Some of them are right, others not so much, one day maybe you'll figure the truth out for yourself" he explains "But you deserve a chance at doing so. I am sorry my brother dragged you here. He was desperate." I nod because I understand him. If it was Jeremy, I would find the person who hurt him no matter what it takes me.

"I think you're…a different vampire" I say my thoughts out loud, even if I am not sure why

"Different how?" he ask curiously and I smile as I look away, my heart is beating out of my chest and I am pretty sure he can hear it even in his weak state

"You have a heart" I reply carefully, barely audible and our eyes meet again. He smiles weekly and I smile back. In this moment, he looks exactly seventeen to me-he seems like a messed up, confused and very hurt teenager who has no idea what's going on.

"Stefan?" I call him out when he closes his eyes and doesn't open them right away. I furrow my eyebrows when I see him clenching his jaw "Stefan?" I raise my voice but he just shivers from the pain and I look at his wound-it's bleeding out so much again it's coloring the couch. He grunts in pain and I see how hard he's trying to fight the venom. This time, it's not passing-the pain is holding him prisoner and both him and I know what will happen once it passes.

He will die.

"DAMON!" I yell out loud

 **Damon's POV**

"We have to talk you and I" I tell Bonnie and pull her to the kitchen, closing the door behind me so Stefan can't hear me, thought I highly doubted he could distinguish our conversation in the weak state he was in and with that girl in the other room. I was no fool-he wouldn't be so eager to protect her if there wasn't something else going on, but right now this was none of my concerns. I had to save him first, I could knock some sense into him later.

"Damon, what the hell, you know I have to prepare!" Bonnie scolds as she pulls away from me and I sigh tiredly as I run my hand through my messy hair "What is it?" she asks now more gently which almost makes me laugh-one moment she was pushing me against the wall by using her magic and next she was caring.

We had a strange thing going her and I. We've been through a lot. I've made a promise to one of her ancestors that I'll keep their lineage safe, which meant I had to keep an eye on Bonnie ever since she was born. She was a smart kid though, a tough one too.

She noticed me first when she was seven and she thought I was a ghost. At ten, when I was keeping an eye on her because her mother and father were fighting so bad on Christmas Eve that she couldn't hear her own thoughts, she came out on the porch and said "What is your deal with me, vampire". She was something, alright, and for the longest time our relationship has been just one of the many complicated things in my life. We were on either good or bad terms all the time-she would be mad with me and the decisions I made, or of me killing people when I was in a bad place. Other times we would have the best time.

"I want you to be honest with me" I look at her and grab the edge of the table, desperately needing something to steady me. What was happening to Stefan was taking its toll on me "Can he survive this spell?" she suddenly looks away and I swallow hard

"He's weak, Damon" she says barely audible when she looks up at me again "But I'll try" she promises "You can help me with that as well."

"How?" I ask hopefully as I take a step towards her

"The spell requires your blood and you going through it all with him" she explains and I listen to her patiently for the first time in ages "My grimoire says that you'll most probably end up in some alternative world while I'm doing the whole thing."

"And what will that be like?" I ask confused "Another place?"

"Most probably it will be some old memory of the two of you. The surroundings should be familiar" I swallow hard. My brother had the tendency to get himself in the worst of messes "Once there, you have to hold on to him tight and never let him go. If you break contact the spell will break too and everything will go to hell."

"So I just have to hold on to him?" I ask confused

"No, you have to go through with it with him, Damon" she tries to clear it out for me "He'll be in pain, excruciating pain, and you'll feel some of that too, but you should be the one to lead him out of that hellhole he's in." I take a step back and turn around, my breathing shallow for a moment, because I'm scared.

I'm afraid of screwing this up.

Because who are we kidding, I am Damon Salvatore, my specialty is fucking things up and I can't do that to Stefan. He didn't deserve it. He was a stubborn little brother who has been giving me headaches ever since we were still kids and human. He was doing so now. But I've always been there to save him. And I can't say I haven't screwed up before-I wasn't there at his worst, when he was a ripper and alone, when he wiped out villages and that guilt he carries inside-that's not on him, it's on me.

"Damon?" Bonnie calls me out "We don't have much time" she reminds me and I turn around, wiping away all kinds of doubt I have off my face and giving her a serious look

"Let's do this!" I say with determination and she nods.

I start walking towards the door, but before I can surpass her and just get to it, I feel her hand on my wrist and her pulling me back. I stop and at first I don't want to look her in the eyes. Then when I finally have the guts to do so, we keep our eyes on each other for a few minutes and when she feels like she has succeeded in calming me down, I find her palm and intertwine my fingers with hers, squeezing them gently, in a grateful way. I don't even realize that our heads are so close to each other that our foreheads are almost touching.

And then I hear that little girl's screeching voice.

"DAMON!" she's yelling and when I try to hear my brother's shallow breathing I realize that all I face is silence.

* * *

I vampspeed to the other room only to find my brother lying down on the couch, his blood soaking through his hand. He was barely conscious and when I lean down and I shake him a few times only to make him open his eyes.

"Stefan!" I call him out "Stefan, goddammit, you idiot, don't you dare do anything stupid now!" I scold him, but I am shaking on the inside "Stefan!" I call again "Wake up, come on, wake up!" I beg him, but he's not moving at all, so I don't hesitate to bite my wrist and shove it in his mouth. At first he doesn't want to start drinking, he's left with no strength, because he's dying "Come on, come on!" I urge him and then I feel him swallow once, then twice and I let a relieved sigh when he opens his eyes and looks at me with his disorientated eyes.

"D-Damon?" he says and I nod. He wasn't having a hallucination now, he was way passed beyond that, he was so worse, that I had no idea if we even had a few hours left, let alone a day

"It's fine, hold on!" I tell him as I look up at Bonnie who nods as she grabs the last few candles she needs to order and rereads the spell a few times "We're doing this now and you'll be fine" I console Stefan as I throw his arm on my shoulders and attempt to raise him up, but he lifts his hand up and makes me stop

"I want you to promise me" he says "That even if I die, you won't kill her" he nods at the girl who's still tied up on the chair and I want to kick his ass for this, because I couldn't for the life of me figure out why he would want to keep her safe when she did all of this to him "And I want you, to move on with your life, alright?" he asks of me again, but I don't have it in me to give him any promises-that meant that I'm willing to accept a scenario in which he's dead and I wasn't doing that.

"Get your shit together, Stefan!" I tell him as I finally raise him up and he yells out from the pain in his side as he starts bleeding again "It's time we get this over with and you get better so I can mock you and kick your sorry ass."

He attempts to smile as I lead him to Bonnie. She orders us to stand against one and hold each other's hands, which proves to be very difficult, because he's barely standing on his feet.

"You hold on to me and I'll keep you standing" I tell him and he nods lightly "Don't you dare let me go, alright? You hold on to me!" I warn once more

"Alright" he mumbles out and I try to give him a supportive smile when Bonnie approaches us with a knife. She takes my hand and makes a deep cut, which I don't mind, but when she grabs Stefan's one, I stop her

"Is this really necessary? He's bleeding already, can't you take it from somewhere else?" Stefan slightly grunts which is his way of showing me that he's fine and he's brushing my damn concern off but I don't pay any attention to him

"I'm sorry Damon, it has to be this way" she cuts me off as she grabs Stefan's hand and drives the knife through it. Then she brings our hands together and makes us hold each other tight while our blood starts dripping on the floor. Bonnie grabs her book and approaches us.

"Here we go" she whispers and I think it's to myself, but she's actually trying to encourage herself. I hear Elena's heart beating out of her chest, but I try to focus on my brother and Bonnie. I could always deal with her later.

I close my eyes not because I want to, but it's just because what happens when Bonnie starts chanting. I can't determine what's going on at first, I feel like something is pulling me back, but Stefan's hands and mine are still strongly holding each other. I immediately feel a dull pain on my right side, where's Stefan's big wound was and a throbbing pain in my head, where his big gash was and when I hear his weak voice calling me and finally open up my eyes again, I can't be more surprised.

 _We're standing in the middle of a field, but it's not just any place-it's near the battlefield, I can tell, it's dark around us and the ground is wet and muddy. I can hear the shots fired in somewhere behind us and when I turn around I see the familiar forest where Stefan and I fought the last battle of the war. My breath gets stuck in my throat-this is hell! We can't be back to the most awful time of our lives. We can't be back to war._

 _"Damon" my brother mumbles out my name and when I turn to look at him, I see he's dressed in his Confederates uniform, his hat is soaking out the blood from the gash on his head and the wound on his side is as fresh as it was when we were back in my flat._

 _I look down at myself and I realize that I'm dressed just as he is, except there are no wounds on me, though I can still feel Stefan's pain inside me. I assume we were connected now in some way and I was sharing some of his pain, like Bonnie said I would, but I was times better than he was_

 _"Where the hell are we?" he asks me and I can see the tears in his eyes. War is his most awful nightmare as well as mine._

 _When he ran away from home to join me, Stefan came to find me in an awful mental state and during that time, he was the stronger one out of the two of us. He was younger, but he was my shoulder to lean on. He would bring me food and urge me to do our drills, he would cover for me when I got drunk and he would camp outside my tent knowing that I have nightmares and he had to get in before everyone has heard my screams. He held me in his arms and calmed me down, gave me water, took care of me._

 _That didn't change when we first went into battle together. I was a mess, I couldn't even hold my rifle up and shoot and when I did, my aim wasn't good and it all went to hell. I would've been killed numerous times if it wasn't for Stefan, who walked before me with his rifle, his hand always ready to grab my collar and pull me down or behind a tree. He saved my life on so many occasions._

 _After some time passed, I got a little bit better, with his help and when I did, I noticed the dark circles under his eyes and his own inability to sleep. That's when I figured out he has ruined himself for me, but still out of the two of us, he was still the stronger one. No matter how many times I tried to pick myself up, even if my hand steadied when it held a rifle, even if I was able to go through a night without a nightmare, he was the one who kept us both safe._

 _And the day we got shot was no different. He stood in before me and took two bullets before I knew what was going on. The next thing I remember, I was lying on the ground next to him. Then it was all a blur-but what I know is that on our way home, he was holding my hand._

 _And now I was holding his._

 _"D-Damon" he calls me out again and I realize he's warning me, for he is about to fall._

 _I pull him to my own aching body and try to steady him, I know well enough I can't let myself ever break contact with him so I kept his hand in mine at all times._

 _"Don't worry" I tell him "We're getting out of here" I start slowly helping him walk, but the thing is, I can't see anything before me or behind me, I can only hear the shots that are being fired and somehow I can say that they are getting close to us. I don't know where to take Stefan, because there's literally no place to hide-the forest behind us was full of soldiers and there was nothing but a field before us._

 _"Damon, you shouldn't have done this" he tells me, but I shush him and I move both our hands on his wound so we can close it. I swallow hard as I take another step-God, I can't imagine the pain he was going through if this is only half of what he's feeling. I barely find it in myself to carry him and walk._

 _And then the next thing I know, someone's shooting at us. One of the bullets passes inches from my head and I duck both me and Stefan, who yelps out from the pain he feels._

 _"Did we have to end up here of all places, goddammit!" I curse as I pull Stefan's body closer to mine and start tugging him_

 _"Damon, stop, it hurts!" he begs me, but I can't stop, I have to get him through this damn field, I have to save him "God, slow down, I can't. I just can't!" he begs me_

 _"You can. I am here" I calm him down as I keep tugging him. They keep shooting at us, I can even hear voices now, maybe someone was following us, how would I know I didn't even dare move "Come on, don't give up on me." I beg him when I see his eyes starting to close. He was going to pass out and I couldn't have this "Open your eyes, Stefan!" I shake him as I keep dragging him, one of the bullets hits my foot and I stagger, almost dropping Stefan down_

 _"You have to let me go and get out of here!" he says through teeth when he sees the blood in my leg, but I shake my head_

 _"Never!" I say and our eyes meet._

 _Whatever this place is, it's hell for sure. Both Stefan and I had so much nightmares after we came back from the battlefield and recovered from our wounds. This looked exactly like one of my own. It was part nightmare part what really happened-we were shot at that battlefield, but we never tried to run. We wouldn't do that._

 _And that's when it hit me._

 _We were running he and I. That's not what we would do._

 _"Stefan, do you trust me?" I ask him and he looks up at me, I can see the life leaving his eyes. Bonnie better be finishing that off, because soon, we would be done here._

 _"You know I do" he says and I smile_

 _"Then, hold on to me very close." I whisper and he nods, because he just can't speak._

 _I grip him tight and turn us both around. We face the soldiers who raise their rifles and rush to us._

 _"Damon" Stefan calls me out one last time. We know they are coming for us, we can hear them approach us, we know what's about to happen "You should let me go."_

 _"No way" I say once more and pull him tighter because I can feel that he's trying to get away. I know why he wants to do it-he wants to sacrifice himself once again and let himself die, leaving me with a way out of here and a life on my own, without him. But that wasn't going to happen "You have been sacrificing yourself for me over and over again. Now it's time to shut up and let me do this."_

 _I hold him very tight when the first shot goes through my chest. The second and the third made me stagger because they are not only hitting me but him as well. The fourth and the fifth make me take a step back and then I lost count because no matter how hard I try to keep us up, we fall on the ground._

 _But I still don't let him go. Bonnie's words to keep his hands in mine are echoing in my head and when we're both lying on the muddy ground and the soldiers are passing by us, marching on, I turn left to my brother and he turns to me._

 _"Close your eyes, Stefan" I tell him as I keep holding his hand in mine. It's cold and damp and so is mine._

 _But Stefan closes his eyes and as soon as I am sure he's fine I do so too._

When I open them Bonnie is leaning down with a very worried expression on her face. I move her hand away from my chest and raise up, looking frantically for Stefan only to find him right next to me on the left, lying on the floor breathing heavily.

He still seems a bit weak, but he smiles and grips my hand back.

"It worked?" I ask Bonnie and she smiles

"It worked." she assures me and before I know what I am doing, I pull her in for a hug and keep her in my arms until I'm sure that we're away from that awful place of destruction and war.

 **Stefan's POV**

I can see how happy my brother is that everything worked out. Or so he thought. He would never know that I am not exactly healed, at least as long as Bonnie keeps our secret. I had no intentions of screwing things up-this was my last chance to fix things between my brother and me and help him, because as much as he denied it, we both knew that there are things he's not proud of, things which are my fault.

He's as weak as I am right now, because we went through the same shit in that dream or whatever it was and we were exhausted. I have no idea what kind of fate it was that we were taken back to one of the worst moments of our lives, but I knew that whenever Damon and I suffered from war nightmares, we needed days to get back to our feet.

"Bonnie, can you take him to his room?" I ask of her when she helps him settle on the couch next to me after my brother realized that he's a bit more weaker than he supposed to. She already gave us blood, but we were both feeling like hell. At least that would pass and my wounds were no longer there. For now "He needs rest."

"No" Damon opposes as he throws the empty plastic bottle which was until a few minutes ago still full of blood on the floor "We have to take care of her" he nods at Elena who was still sitting on the chair tied up and observing everything with an extremely confused expression on her face. My guess was that she didn't get to see a witch perform a spell every day.

"I can do that" I assure him, but he shakes his head

"You're too weak" he loves fighting with me, if he doesn't oppose to anything, it won't be him.

"I drank enough blood, I can compel her and let her go" I say and I see Elena's eyes widen "The vervain must be out of her system by now and we should do it before anyone has noticed that she's been gone for too long."

"Stefan, I don't-" he begins again, but I put my hand on his shoulder and squeeze it

"Let me take care of it. You go and rest" I say a bit roughly, because I want him to stop arguing with me and he finally sighs and lets Bonnie give him a hand and carry him to his bedroom. I know that she herself is very tired. The spell she performed must've worn her out and I hoped they'll both fall asleep and let me deal with this.

Once the door is closed and I've gathered enough strength I stand up, grab one of the wooden chairs and sit opposite of Elena after untying her hands first. I know that she won't hurt me now.

"Don't be scared" I tell her as I notice that she's shivering "I won't hurt you."

"Why not?" she asks next and her question takes me by surprise "It's only logical for you to hate me after everything that I did to you."

"I don't" I respond calmly

"I almost killed you" she slightly raises her voice "You were barely breathing on that couch only hours ago! If I were you, I would want to kill the person who put me through all that pain."

"Oh, make no mistake, Elena. I do hate everything that you did to me" I explain "I hate that cell that you locked me into, I hate your father, I hate the hunters, I hate all the ways they tortured me and I won't be able to forget any of it for a very long time. You cut out my insides, you shoved me against walls or repeatedly staked me, you poisoned me with so much vervain that I can still feel it even after Bonnie performed the spell. You destroyed me and I have no idea how I'll recover from that" I tell her in all seriousness and take a minute to let her process my words ass I lean back on the chair and check if my brother and Bonnie are sleeping already with my now restored vampire hearing-they are and I almost want to smile to myself. He was safe.

"So will you destroy me now?" she asks next

"No" I tell her as I lean back to her and take her hands in mine "You're just a kid. And yes you did all those things to me, but I decide today that I will see only the good in you. I've made mistakes when I was your age and I know what it's like to live a life that your parents have mapped out for you. I think I want to give you a chance to figure it all out by yourself. A chance that I was never given. I went to war, I came back shattered and then I turned, something which wasn't exactly my choice. I know that you being like that and doing all this is not your choice either. It's the choice your father made for you."

"Stefan, I am not a good person" she says next and I smile as I caress her hands

"We'll see about that. Take my advice-question everything they tell you. You have now seen a part of my world, you know it's not all black and white. Think about that the next time you cut into someone's stomach or drive a stake through a vampire's heart. There's always more to the story than they tell you." she smiles and nods, giving me a silent promise "Now, we have to get this over with. I can't let anything happen to my brother, so you understand that you have to forget. I'm sorry."

"It's okay" she assures "I am ready."

I nod and I know what I have to do, but I decide to give both her and me a minute, just to get ourselves together. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath and I have no idea what I am doing, but I know this-I have some feelings for her and they almost got me killed and they are what pushes me towards her now.

They are what makes our lips collide. And even though I know it's wrong on so many levels and that if Damon was here, he would be kicking my ass for even considering this, but I just can't help it.

Or maybe I let myself do this, because I know it will be for the last time. Our paths will never intervene again, there was no way for this to happen because it meant both her and I would be in danger. She was just a kid she had her whole life in front of her and I only had a year to fix everything between me and my brother and live whatever's left of my life.

I cup her cheek and bring her even closer to me. She kisses back and places her small hand on the back of my neck. Her heart is beating out of her chest, but I try not to listen to it, because I know it's not fair towards her. Instead I let myself drown in it, the way our worlds collide and I almost want to smile, because we are so different yet something's pulling us towards one another.

I don't want to let her go.

I can't.

But I have to and when I do, I see the tears rolling down her cheeks and I brush them away with my thumb. I cut her cheek with my hand and clear my throat.

"Goodbye, Elena" I tell her one last time and she tries to swallow down her tears

"Goodbye, Stefan" she responds

I sigh as I take a deep breath and take her hands in mine before looking her in the eyes.

"You'll forget that my brother ever kidnapped you, you will forget that he brought you here and that we did a spell that saved me, you will forget that you met a witch and you'll forget that I kissed you. You will forget everything about this day and if someone asks you something, you'll tell them you got drunk last night and spent the day sleeping."

"I spent the day sleeping" she repeats and I nod. It's working, I am not too weak to pull this off.

"Now you'll leave and you'll go back to your dorm and you'll have a good sleep. When you wake up, you'll keep on with your life and you won't think of Stefan Salvatore. You'll believe he died after he ran away, because there's no way he could've survived a werewolf venom and you'll close this chapter of your life."

"Stefan Salvatore is dead" she repeats and I nod, relieved that this is working.

I untie her feet and help her get to the door. I want to kiss her forehead or hold her hand in mine a little while longer.

But I know I can't.

So I just watch her leave and refuse to admit that there's something in me breaking apart.


End file.
